


Wide Open Spaces, Wild Empty Nights

by darlathecyborgpluviophile



Series: I Suffer(ed) From The Birdcage Syndrome [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Asexual Characters, Canon Disabled Character, Dissociation, Everyone Has Issues, Flashbacks, Healing, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Emotional Abuse, Implied/Referenced Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage, Intrusive Thoughts, Intrusive memories, LGBT Cast, M/M, MT!Prompto, Mid-Pieces, Minor Self Harm, Nightmares, Noctis Lives AU, Non-Linear Healing, One-sided Gladio/Ignis, POV Second Person, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Pining, Rape Aftermath, Suicidal Ideation, Touch Aversion, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-03-19 14:41:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlathecyborgpluviophile/pseuds/darlathecyborgpluviophile
Summary: Prompto starts on the road to recovery. But between Noctis's disappearance, ten years of darkness, and the tumultuous nature of healing, it's not always a smooth path to travel...





	1. Year 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone! Been an eventful few months. :) As you can see, this is the first chapter of a ten part entry in the Birdcage series! For the first handful of chapters I’ll be updating it once a week, and after that we’ll see how things go. Thank you as always for reading and taking time to be here!
> 
> This was edited and beta'd by the fantastic invisibledeity, and the title comes from the song "Trepanation", by Sons Of Nothing.

When you get to the Crystal, Noctis isn't there, but Ardyn is.  
  
A rage the likes of which you've never felt before floods through your system and you see red. It takes control of your limbs and makes you run faster than you ever have in your life.  
  
You reach the hunk of rock, which gives off an unassuming blue light.   
  
You hear Ardyn huff a laugh behind you, and you react. It's like you only need blink and he's down on the catwalk, bullet in his back. You shoot him again for good measure.  
  
Gladio and Ignis walk as fast as they can towards you.  
  
"Did you—" Gladio starts.  
  
"Dead."  
  
You turn towards the Crystal, but you already know there are no clues to be found, no remains.  
  
Noctis is well and truly gone.  
  
It takes everything you have to keep from falling to your knees then and there.   
  
Ardyn's a good excuse.   
  
You hear a shifting behind you, and whirl around on the spot, Lion Heart at the ready.   
  
The progenitor of your worst nightmares stands and walks out of the room, past Gladio and Ignis like they're nothing. He doesn't pay you a second glance either.   
  
Ignis is the first to speak, once you meet where the catwalk ends.  
  
"You shot him."  
  
You swallow. There's no moisture in your throat.   
  
"Twice. Point blank."  
  
"I see."  
  
Gladio says nothing, the rage emanating off him speaking for itself.  
  
"And Noct?" Ignis continues.  
  
You bite your lip, and grip your pistol harder.  
  
"He's gone."  
  
Ignis's brow creases. For the first time since you've met him, he looks visibly upset.  
  
"It was a trap, then."  
  
He spits every word, like poison from his daggers.  
  
Gladio folds his arms, and looks away.  
  
"No shit."  
  
"I knew this was risky," Ignis continues, with only slightly less vitriol, "Our enemy practically giving us this opportunity on a silver platter. We were lured here for a purpose."  
  
Gladio gives you a pointed glance. You look to your hands, and the gun resting there.  
  
_Why didn't it work?  
  
"Oh, I'd hate to break up the pity party,"_ a skin-crawling voice crackles over the PA, " _but I'm afraid I promised your dear Noct I'd have some fun with you while he was away."  
_  
That, and the gloppy, messy sound of daemons rising from nothing causes you to look up and utter one thing:  
  
"Run."  
  
  
******  
  
  
You come awake with a start, wrestling blankets from your body.  
  
The daemons, the MTs, the suffocating smoke coming from Zegnautus Keep collapsing around you is too real, too much. You can't even breathe. Your lungs work double time, trying to gather enough oxygen to convince yourself you're not fighting for your life anymore. While they do so, you take in your surroundings.  
  
This is a caravan. You're lying in the bottom bunk to the right of the vehicle, and through the nearest window you see the lights of Hammerhead outpost. You're in the Leiden territory of Lucis. You're alone. You're safe. You're safe. You're...  
  
"...trained to do this, that's what he was."  
  
"Gladio, please."  
  
"The kid's a soldier. Put him on a battlefield, he'll do great."  
  
"You know very well that's not all that was done to him."  
  
Your heart doesn't stop pounding. In fact, it seems to get faster as you listen in on the argument outside.  
  
"I'm not here to talk about that," Gladio says.   
  
"I am." Ignis says it with all the determination in the world. "He needs help."  
  
"Yeah, and where's he gonna get a therapist in this shithole the world's become? He needs to be put to use."  
  
"Gladio, are you—are you hearing yourself? You're going to put this man, this beaten, abused..." Ignis trails off on that sentence, resuming a few seconds later. "You want to put him on the battlefield? As a hunter? In unfamiliar territory? You can’t be serious."  
  
You don't want to hear this anymore. You lie back down on your bunk, cramming your pillow over your ears, willing this conversation to end.  
  
It doesn't. Ignis continues before Gladio gets a chance to respond.  
  
"Think of what Noct went through to get him back. Think of why he's gone in the first place—"  
  
"Yeah, it's that shit's f—"  
  
Something happens that gets Gladio to stop before finishing.  
  
"Noct wanted him with us. You heard the way he talked about him on the train. Something about Prompto," – you pull your pillow tighter over your head, still blocking out nothing– “made him happy. He was worth protecting. I obviously don't feel exactly as he did, but I see the good he saw, at least. And here you are, attempting to squander Noct's parting wish and outright dehumanize Prompto!"  
  
Gladio yells in frustration, and something heavy clangs against the ground outside.

  
"Now that was just unnecessary."  
  
"You think?"  
  
Ignis sighs.  
  
"He's unstable. He's seen and done far too much in his life. Forcing him to fight now would be counter-productive. Now that he's away from the Chancellor, his trauma is going to come out in full force."  
  
"Never stopped my dad."  
  
Silence.   
  
"You leave me no choice," Ignis says, sounding utterly tired. He heaves a sigh. "Think about my struggles."  
  
"Iggy."  
  
"Do you really expect me to hunt alongside you? With my...handicap? You know I can't."  
  
"Do not bring yourself into this—"  
  
"I want to. Astrals know I do, but I can't. You saw me back in Niflheim. I'd be a sitting duck. I'd probably get you killed as well."  
  
"You," Gladio rumbles, "have a physical handicap."  
  
"A mental handicap is lesser?"  
  
Gladio stops talking outright.  
  
"I need an aid. I don't know what I can do to help, but you know I need a companion, and he will need one as well, to begin recovery."  
  
There's silence, in the parking lot outside. You release your grip on the pillow, hoping fruitlessly that this means their fighting is over.  
  
"You know, it's really not fair to bring you into this."  
  
"If it'll get you to tap into the empathy I know you possess," Ignis snaps, "then I will do what I must."  
  
Their talking subsides into whispers, from then on.   
  
You flip from your stomach and lie back on the skinny bunk, mind and heart racing.  
  
You. They were arguing about you, obviously. You're not sure whose perspective you agree with.   
  
The door to the caravan opens, and not quietly. Inside steps Gladio, and you scramble as far away from him as you can get on the cot. He gives you a passing look, long and sharp, and turns on the kitchenette sink. Holding some of his hair back with one hand, he splashes the meager water onto his face.  
  
He comes back up, turning the faucet off, and breathes.  
  
You find it within yourself to speak.  
  
"I'm not weak."  
  
Gladio turns back, so only his face points toward you.  
  
He sighs.  
  
"I know, kid."  
  
  
******  
  
  
In what passes for a morning now, Gladio is gone.  
  
Ignis sits just outside the caravan, with canned coffee in one hand, looking just as prim and regal as ever. His cane rests against the side of the trailer, within reach.  
  
You see all this, through the window above the kitchen sink. You tap your fingers against the metal of the basin.  
  
Thinking about the half-heard argument, the last thing you want to do is go out there. You don't want to face down what your existence means to these people when their King is gone.   
  
In a way, Gladio was right. You're a soldier. It's your purpose. You should be out there, fulfilling your duty as an MT. But Ignis mentioned you had a mental handicap, and well...do you?  
  
You look down at yourself. It's hard to tell at this point where the damaged purple ends and your normal pale skin begins. That has nothing to do with the mind, though.   
  
You don't understand. _You don't understand_.  
  
You look up, mentally uttering a prayer to the gods, and step out of the Caravan. Ignis tilts his head towards your position as soon as you start down the creaking metal stairs.  
  
"Ah. Awake, finally."  
  
"What time is it?"  
  
"Nearing ten a.m., I believe."  
  
You take the seat across from him at the flimsy plastic table. A chilly wind sweeps up against the caravan and through you, making you shiver.  
  
"Jeez."  
  
You look over at Ignis, frowning into the middle distance. The sight makes you curl in yourself, ashamed for existing in his life, because you know you're what's causing that frown.  
  
"I...guess I thought that once we got out of Niflheim it would warm up. Too bad, huh?"  
  
"Indeed." Ignis doesn't smile at the comment, instead taking a sip of his coffee. "What does it look like?"  
  
"Uh...what?"  
  
"The Night."  
  
The way the words are spoken, you shiver again.   
  
He wants you to describe...this...to him?  
  
"It's like...it's like, uh..." you fumble for your words, "it's not really much to talk about. It's just...nothing. There are some clouds here and there, but there's no stars, and no moon. Just...black. Everywhere."  
  
Your voice falters. You clasp your hands together, and look down at your lap.   
  
"And the outpost?" Ignis prompts. He sounds so small right now, and you hate it.   
  
"It's normal, I think. I mean, I don't know what it looked like before, but...there's some lights on over at the circular building—"  
  
"Takka's Pit Stop."  
  
"Right, that, and the store is open, but the main big building's closed. There's some lights around the perimeter, but they're not much." You swallow. "Definitely won't be enough with the daemons."  
  
Ignis nods, and drinks more of his coffee.   
  
"Thank you, Prompto."  
  
Your brain freezes at the prospect of being thanked for something. It's still too new. Ignis sighs in your silence, heavy and long-suffering.  
  
"Gladio went to notify a couple friends of ours that we arrived. From what I can tell," Ignis lets out another sigh, combined with a bit of a growl, "he won't be returning."  
  
"What?" You turn your chair so you can face the side of his body. "Not returning—why?"  
  
"He notified me that you heard our argument, last night. Those were the reasons why."  
  
Oh. It's your fault, then.  
  
You shake your head, and fold your arms enough that you can dig your nails into your bicep. They catch on a bruise, but you don't care. You deserve the extra pain, at this point.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be. Don’t do that to yourself.”

  
Ignis tilts back the last of his coffee, while you stare blankly.  
  
"The man is one of my dearest friends," he says, placing the empty can on the table, "a good, stalwart companion. With all due respect, he was being a prick."  
  
"He was?"  
  
Ignis tilts his head.  
  
"You said you heard the argument, correct?"  
  
"Um...yeah."  
  
Ignis doesn't say anything for a moment, tapping against his thigh.  
  
"He wanted to make you a Hunter."  
  
Right. But Ignis hadn't liked that idea.   
  
Why?  
  
"What's wrong with that?"  
  
Ignis doesn't say anything, again. He steeples his fingers while another gust of wind scatters goosebumps across your marred flesh.  
  
"Prompto, have you heard of an illness known as post-traumatic stress disorder?"  
  
It doesn't sound familiar. "No, sorry."  
  
Ignis leans back in his chair. "I see." His brow creases as he thinks. "Tell me, why did you wake up last night? Was it only because we were being loud, or did you have something along the lines of a nightmare?"  
  
Does he really want to know?   
  
Nightmares are bad. Nightmares make you a nuisance. The punishments you received if you woke Ardyn up with one were varied, but all kinds of stomach clenching and disgusting and awful.   
  
Are nightmare punishments a universal thing?   
  
What are you supposed to say?   
  
"I can't hear body language, Prompto."  
  
"I-I-I...well," you try swallowing back a dizzying rush of anxiety, "I mean—"  
  
"Is that a yes?"  
  
Your shoulders hunch again.   
  
"Yes...I'm sorry, please, don't—"  
  
Ignis holds up a hand. It's by no means facing your direction, but you understand its meaning anyway.  
  
"Two things."  
  
He switches so he's holding two fingers out.  
  
"The fact that you had a nightmare, presumably about something to do with Zegnautus,"—you hum an 'mm-hm'—“as well as your reaction to my asking about it just now, tells me how probable it is you're suffering from this illness. Did the Chancellor punish you, when you suffered a nightmare under his care?"  
  
You grip your bruised arm harder.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And when I asked, were you afraid I would react similarly?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"Where are you sitting?" he asks, apropos of nothing.  
  
Something slick coats the skin where you dig into it, and with a glance down you find it's blood.   
  
"Um."  
  
_Relax,_ you think, _it's not like he can see it.  
_  
"To your left," you reply, "Like, across the table, but on that side."  
  
Ignis stands, turning his chair so he can face you. When all is said and done, his hands rest on either side of his empty coffee can.  
  
"Prompto. I need you to listen to what I am about to say, because from now until the end of your life, it will be one of the most important things you will ever hear. Do you understand?"  
  
You nod, curious about what he's going to tell you.   
  
"I understand."

You try to keep the words from sounding clinical and unaffected.  
  
"Good." Ignis sighs in relief. "Prompto, I need you to know that you are safe with us. With myself, with Cindy, who will be arriving within the next few days, and with Gladio, who should be returning whenever he decides to pull his head out of his arse. You are safe, here, in Hammerhead, daemons notwithstanding. No one here will bring you any harm. They are not going to punish you, or bring you physical pain, and they are certainly not going to hold you down and have their way with you. Here, you are an equal, and you are worth it."  
  
_You're his._  
  
Something in your head whispers counter to Ignis's grounding words.  
  
"You are human, and you are safe."  
  
_You are an object._  
  
"Do you understand?"  
  
You gape, and stare ahead at him.   
  
Can he really be telling the truth? The things he says can't be real, not with Noctis gone.  
  
His head is tilted down towards the table, but his face betrays sympathy. Concern.  
  
"I...I don't know," you respond.  
  
Ignis's face twists, a bit of sadness leeching into his worry for you.  
  
"I suppose that's only fair. After all, you've only just been released from a highly abusive and toxic environment. These concepts may take time for you to internalize. However, know that they remain true, whether you believe them or not."  
  
You think back through the things he said—safety, no punishments, being treated as a human being. You don't understand the meaning of one thing, though.  
  
"Um..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
You unfold your arms, bringing them down onto the table. You trace the raised skin and injuries on your right arm down to where your barcode sits.  
  
"You said, no one's going to 'have their way with me'..." You stare into the lines of ink like they hold the solace you seek. "What does that mean?"  
  
Ignis clears his throat.  
  
"After what transpired on the train, Noct told us of your...position, with the Chancellor. How you were his slave first, bodyguard second."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Your breathing hitches.   
  
"No one, and may I repeat, no one," Ignis continues, "is going to treat you like that again. I can promise you that. You are worth far more than how he used you and what he did."  
  
_You're his,_ the voice in the back of your head whispers, _you always will be.  
_  
"Okay."  
  
"We won't touch you at all if you don't specifically consent. I will pass the information on to Cindy and Talcott, once they arrive."  
  
You lean over onto the table, cradling your head in your arms.  
  
"You're sure?" you croak, looking over the hill of your arm.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You're...you're absolutely certain that no one's going to have sex with me?"  
  
Ignis's expression darkens. He nods like he's never been more sure of anything in his life.  
  
"You have my word."  
  
  
******  
  
  
The days run together, in the pervasive blackness. But between your nightmare ridden sleep, the scratch marks you add to your already scarred skin, the insidious thoughts that swirl in your head, time would be easy to lose anyway.   
  
When Ignis tells you that a week has passed, you're not surprised. In some ways, it's felt like longer.  
  
You sit inside of Takka's when he brings it up. He drinks his coffee from a white mug today, unaware of your shaky mental state and halted healing.  
  
"They should be arriving soon," he says. "Once you're all done introducing yourselves, Cindy will be showing you around the garage, where we'll be living for the next however long."  
  
You hold your own mug tight in both hands, using it more to warm up than actually drinking what's inside. Despite Ignis's claims of your humanity, you're afraid to eat or drink. You've never needed to before, and it's easier on you to retain some modicum of normality in this situation.  
  
You watch the steam from your coffee rise into the air, blend in, and dissipate.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to fight?"  
  
"Positively certain. With your trauma and its symptoms, trust me when I say it's far more effective to keep you out of a life and death situation."  
  
"I'm really okay," you mumble. You're not, but he doesn't need to know that.  
  
Ignis raises his cup to his lips when Takka speaks up from across the restaurant.  
  
"That them?"  
  
He points out the window at the car park, where a dingy pickup truck pulls in and towards the large, closed building. Even with your limited knowledge, you can tell that the vehicle is in bad shape. The blue paint is scratched in several places, one of the headlights is out, and it's obvious that pieces—particularly near the end—are missing. It's a miracle its occupants made it here alive.  
  
"Yeah," you answer because Ignis can't, "I mean, I think so."  
  
The two of you walk out of the diner and across the length of the outpost, towards the place where the truck has parked.   
  
Even across the distance, _she's_ not difficult to point out.  
  
A woman crouches at the gate to the garage, fiddling with a lock and a pair of keys. With every jerky movement, her curly hair bounces around, the blonde of it so vivid it could easily act as a landmark in the darkness.   
  
As for the rest of her body, _well._  
  
You remember, years ago, when you visited Tenebrae with Ardyn, down one of the rows in Fleuret Manor's gardens had been statues of past Oracles. Each woman had been carved in unblemished marble, the dips and curves of their bodies covered only in loosely flowing robes. They had been one of your favorite parts of the visit, and the same sense of beauty you felt then strikes you now, the closer you get to this woman.  
  
The lock opens with a slight _click_ , and she utters, "There!" before sliding the gate up and into a hole in the building.  
  
She lights up when she sees Ignis, but falters when she takes his whole countenance in.  
  
"Iggy! How're ya—land's sakes, what happened to your face?"  
  
He doesn't grimace, just gestures with his hand and replies, "Flesh wound."  
  
"That looks pretty bad," comes a smaller, boyish voice. You tear your eyes away from Cindy long enough to see a child, probably around ten, standing to your right.  
  
"Prompto," Ignis says, gesturing towards the two, "this is Cindy and Talcott."  
  
"Well, howdy!" Cindy says, outstretching a hand towards you. "Don't think I recognize you!"  
  
_A handshake,_ you remind yourself. _This is a handshake_.  
  
You're about to attempt taking it when Ignis says, "Cindy, a word, please. Privately."  
  
She walks with him a few meters away, leaving you with the boy.  
  
"Do you...not like handshakes?" he asks.  
  
That's a weird question.  
  
"I've never performed one before?"  
  
Talcott's eyes widen.  
  
"Woah, really?! Man, that's lucky. My grandpa always made a pretty big deal of how 'proper' it was. Like that's what you have to do with new people, to be respectful. I'm not very good at it, but I guess I’m not going to be staying here for very long, so it doesn’t matter."  
  
He wilts just a little when he brings up his grandfather, but it doesn't seem to last.  
  
"So! What's your name?"  
  
He sure is determined to talk to you, isn't he?  
  
"Prompto."  
  
"Prompto," he repeats. "What's your last name?"  
  
You never thought about that.  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"Mine's Hester. Talcott Hester."  
  
You sink your nails into a spot right above your barcode.  
  
"Uh, I don't exactly...have...one."  
  
His face narrows in confusion.  
  
"You don't have one? Oh, is it like amnesia?"  
  
Neither Ardyn or Noctis gave you a last name. What do you say?  
  
Talcott's face narrows further.  
  
"Hey, what's that on your wrist?"  
  
"Prompto," Ignis calls as he walks with Cindy back into your line of sight. He looks like he's going to say something else, but Cindy beats him to it.  
  
"Iggy here says I should give you a tour of the ol' garage! Show you where you're gonna be living, and all that. Wanna head in with me?"  
  
She makes a circular motion with her arms, ending in both her thumbs pointing to the inside of the garage.  
  
You look to Ignis, who only says, "Go."  
  
Cindy leads you inside, walking a few paces ahead. You navigate around various equipment and shelving units, all haphazardly arranged and growing dustier as you move towards the back.  
  
"Figure we should probably start upstairs, and work our way back down to Iggy and half-pint, out there."  
  
She begins up a flight of rickety stairs in the back left corner of the building, pausing briefly to pull a string that lights the whole area up.  
  
You follow as she climbs.  
  
"Um...half-pint?"  
  
"Y'know, Talcott out there. I'm a bit of a nicknamer."  
  
Oh, like how Aranea calls you 'blondie'.  
  
"Right, okay."  
  
You emerge into a skinny, wood paneled hallway with three doors, and an entryway to what looks like a more open area. Cindy pulls open the door closest to the entryway, leading you inside.  
  
She pulls on another string just inside the door, again lighting the room.  
  
It's a modest place, windowless and tiny. The wood paneling continues in here, the light giving it an orange glow. Two beds are pressed up against opposite walls, each with a wooden nightstand next to it. The place is surprisingly empty, and the flannel print sheets on the beds made; it must have been vacated recently.  
  
"Oh!"  
  
Cindy walks to the back of the room, her hands on her hips.  
  
"'Fraid I forgot to properly introduce myself! M'name's Cindy, Cindy Aurum. I run the outpost, now that Paw-Paw's settled out in Lestallum. This used to be his room, y'should know."  
  
You don't hear the words about Paw-Paw's whereabouts.  
  
You hear nothing after the word _Aurum._  
  
Your vision blurs, the bright bedroom giving way to dim, to gray, to red.  
  
Ardyn drags his finger down your face, too close. He's close to you, he's too fucking close, gods, you want him away, you want him out of you...please, fuck, no more.  
  
How is it that you must continue reliving his cruelty, even after getting away?  
  
You tremble in the metal rig. His breath is hot on your cheek when he whispers, _"You look nearly like my lost Aurum."  
_  
Then you're back in Hammerhead, in the garage, lying half on something...soft?  
  
Your vision clears completely. It's one of the beds in the empty bedroom, you realize. Cindy stares at you with her huge blue eyes.  
  
"Shiva's tits, are you alright?"  
  
The name flashes through your head once more, like sunlight glinting off metal.  
  
"D-do you know a man named Ardyn?" you find yourself saying. "Tall, red hair, handsy, creepy, probably the...the a-absolute worst person you'll ever meet in your life?"  
  
Cindy's brow creases, and she tilts her head.  
  
"Can't say I have. ’Course, there's plenty of men round these parts with wandering hands, sure haven't memorized them all...why'd you..."  
  
She steps back, taking in your whole form.   
  
"Oh," she breathes, putting her hands up to her mouth, "oh, sugar. That's what happened to you. No wonder Iggy told me you were sensitive to..."   
  
She brings her hands down. Half a second later, a fire lights in her eyes, and she clenches her fists.  
  
"Stay put. I'm go'n get you a glass of water, alright?"  
  
You nod. After your outburst, you can't summon the strength to speak again.  
  
She exits, muttering something about tea probably being better for the situation at hand.  
  
Your tremors worsen as you pull yourself upright.  
  
It really felt like you were back...there, after she said her last name. Ardyn's finger, his body, his voice, all felt so vivid.   
  
You shudder, and burrow your fingernails into your arm, like you’ve been doing all week, every time the past gets the better of you.  
  
"And don't you be doin' that, either."  
  
Cindy reappears in the doorway, glass cup of water and a red bag in her hands.  
  
"Is it alright if I come in?" she asks.  
  
You nod at her again.   
  
She walks a few steps, then pauses at the foot of both beds.  
  
"I wanna hand you this water, and take a look at all the nasty scrapes you've given yourself. That gonna be okay?"  
  
You give her a lookover.  
  
She's a woman. You don't think a woman has ever hurt you, in the past. It's true that her words, something as simple as her introduction, sent you into that...whatever it was, but it wasn't her hands.   
  
She hasn't hurt you with her hands before.  
  
She's giving you something of a peace offering.   
  
She's asking consent.  
  
Ignis trusts her.  
  
Still, you fight with yourself before saying, "Okay."  
  
Some of her tension visibly releases, and she sinks onto the bed beside you. She hands you the glass of water, and you hold it in your hands to stare at the clear liquid.  
  
She places her hands on your right arm, tracing the half-moon indentations there.   
  
"Hell. Looks like you've been goin' and makin' these pre-exsistin' injuries worse."  
  
She squints, then pulls the red bag into her lap to unzip.  
  
"Do you..." You clear your throat. "Do you know what just happened?"  
  
"Flashback, I reckon." She pulls a flimsy looking package out of the bag, and holds it up towards the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. "Paw-Paw had 'em sometimes, 'specially when I was a young'un."  
  
A flashback. You think back to the novels you read long ago in Niflheim. A couple of them mentioned the concept, but you didn't think it was a real thing. You wonder if it's part of the illness Ignis said you had, because if it is, you can see how dangerous fighting battles could be.  
  
"It means 'gold', in Solean, y'know."  
  
You shake your head; you must have missed something she said.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"My last name."  
  
She pulls another small package from the red bag, holds it to the light, and puts it in a pile by her thigh.  
  
"They didn't teach you no Solean, back in Niflheim?"  
  
You touch your barcode. Ignis must have told her that part.  
  
"No. Wasn't as important as battle training."  
  
"An' evidently what they let this here 'Ardyn' feller do to you."  
  
Your mouth goes suddenly dry, and you eye the water in your hands.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. What is it?"  
  
She looks up, with an opaque, slightly bigger package in her hand.  
  
"Solean? It's a dead language. Folk back in Solheim and ancient Lucis spoke it. Thought you'd know, your name's Solean too."  
  
"It is?"  
  
She tears open the opaque package, pulling a small cloth out of it.  
  
"Sure is. Means 'quick'."  
  
She returns her attention to the angry red marks on your arms, wiping them down with the small cloth that smells of chemicals. She works silently, with a look on her face that screams concentration. Even her tongue sticks out of her mouth as she swipes away at a layer of dried blood on your left, and you won't lie, it's pretty cute.  
  
Afterwards, she applies these adorable bandages to the worst spots on your arms—white, with a pattern of little pixelated chocobos. Despite the dread that remains nestled in your core, the design at least makes you smile.  
  
Cindy closes the red bag, and sits with it in her lap for a long minute.  
  
"Look, I may've just met you, but I don't wanna see you hurtin’ yourself on purpose no more, okay?"  
  
You stare into the pattern of chocobos but soon force yourself to meet her eyes, blue like the depths of the ocean.  
  
"I can try."  
  
That's really all you can do, isn't it?  
  
"Well," she says, standing and dusting off her pants, "that's somethin'. You feelin' okay to see the rest of the garage?"  
  
You don't know. After the flashback, it feels almost as if nothing will be 'okay' ever again.   
  
Still, you nod.   
  
The other two doors in the wood paneled hallway lead to Cindy's room, which she will be sharing with Talcott until he finds a safer place to live, and a bathroom. The 'more open area' you spotted earlier leads into a kitchen, with a table that seats four, cupboards, a refrigerator, a stove, and what appears to be a small, tabletop oven.   
  
You find yourself wondering if Cindy has any wine, then dismiss the thought before it can escalate.   
  
On the way back down to the ground level, Cindy says, "Iggy told me you need work."  
  
Did he?   
  
"I guess, yeah."  
  
"Not too wild about that?"  
  
"No, I want to help, it's just..."  
  
_It's just I only know how to fight and be fucked, and you people refuse to take advantage of either skill set._  
  
Cindy sighs. "Well, best we can do is put you on security camera detail, watchin’ out for any daemons that might show up.”  
  
You nod. "I can do that."  
  
"Great, I'll getcha started on it later tonight."  
  
The ground level—the actual garage itself—is fascinating. You like it better here than in your new room, amidst all the tools and pieces of machinery. A feeling of familiarity sweeps through you when Cindy shows you her car repair equipment, or when she points out the utensils her Paw-Paw used to augment weapons.   
  
It feels a bit like Niflheim, actually, without the cruelty. Familiar and calming, but without the unsafety that weighed so heavily on your shoulders.  
  
The tour ends too quickly, in your opinion. On top of that, you're still left directionless, unsure of what to do with yourself now or in the days to come besides look at computer screens.   
  
As soon as you get back outside, you gravitate towards Ignis, saying nothing.  
  
"How did it go?" he asks.  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Hm. Is that a good fine or a bad fine?"  
  
It's ridiculous how scrutinizing Ignis can be using only his words.  
  
"I don't know. I saw the room I'm gonna be living in. I kind of freaked out at something Cindy said...she called it a 'flashback'?"  
  
"Really? What of?"  
  
You shrug. "Something from Zegnautus."  
  
"I'm sorry, Prompto."  
  
"It's not your fault."  
  
"Well," he straightens beside you, "it may not be my fault, but I would like to help you through this in whatever way I can. It should be easier now, considering I'll be staying in the same room as you."  
  
"Wait, you're—what?"  
  
You think back, remembering the two beds. Of course. _Of course._ Where else would he stay in this tiny place?  
  
You think back on the argument a week prior.  
  
_"You know I need a companion, and he will need one as well, to begin recovery."_  
  
This will facilitate that. You should have guessed.  
  
"I assumed she told you. My apologies."

“Yeah. Well. We were kind of busy.”

  
You fold your arms, partially in insecurity and partially to retain some of your body heat in the freezing desert night.  
  
"Are you going to be alright?" Ignis asks, cautiously.  
  
There's two beds in the room. The beds are separated, and small enough that _only_ one person could fit on it without struggle.   
  
And Ignis is...  
  
Well.  
  
He looks exhausted, even through his sunglasses. You don't exactly know where he's been sleeping the past week, but you do know that it hasn't been in the caravan with you.   
  
He's already been allowing you personal space at the cost of his own rest, and this realization makes the anxiety in the pit of your stomach begin to expand.  
  
This isn't his choice. It's necessity.  
  
_Ignis is a safe person,_ you tell yourself.  
  
"I'll be okay. Don't worry about me," you say after far too long a silence.  
  
"I'm afraid that's going to happen anyway."  
  
If something goes wrong there's no Regalia to escape to, you realize. No Noctis.  
  
The weight of your grief, ignored until this point due to the back-breaking load of everything else, crushes you in full.   
  
How long are things going to be like this? Is he going to come back? When? How will you know?  
  
Can you even dream of fixing yourself with the closest thing you've ever had to a best friend gone?   
  
You exhale into the night air, still rubbing away goosebumps on your skin.  
  
Are you going to be okay?   
  
"Hey," you say, trying to break the tension, “it's pretty cold out here, isn't it?"  
  
"As you have consistently pointed out every time we've stepped outside this week, yes, it is."  
  
You swallow back the pain, the pervasive fear, the confusion you feel at this situation in the first place.  
  
"Do you want to get something to drink at Takka's?"  
  
Ignis readjusts his sunglasses on his face, an old habit that you're sure only serves to remind him of what he's lost.   
  
"Yes."  
  
With that, the two of you decide to continue putting one foot in front of the other. Heading toward futures unknown is a frightening prospect, but the diner…you can start with that.


	2. Year 2

In retrospect, you knew it had been a bad idea to go to the party at Takka's. There were too many variables, and you remember counting them off to yourself—the presence of alcoholic drinks and other controlled substances, the amount of unfamiliar Hunters that frequent the outpost and would be present, not to mention the very nature of a party as a loud, crowded, and unpredictable place.  
  
It was an unsettling concept to you, but Cindy was excited to go, and Ignis was mildly amused by the thought of participating in something wholly fun in this dark world. You had sighed and relented, going with them as a sort of moral support.  
  
You shouldn't have ignored your intuition. You should have seen it coming.  
  
You should have expected it when the Hunter you had made innocuous small talk with throughout the night reached towards you—possibly in a sudden liquor-induced bout of friendliness, most likely in something more—and stroked your face from cheekbone to jawline, before resting his calloused hand there.  
  
The memories came to you in swarms. Your brain flooded with snippets of little touches, before growing far worse. Stubble scraping against your cheek, red hair flying into your mouth as your whole body jerked, tear tracks keeping your face wet and sticky long into the night.  
  
Luckily, the Hunter got the message at your whispered, "No." Luckily, you found Cindy on your way out of the restaurant, letting her know you weren't staying with a simple, "I'm sorry," as you pushed through the crowd towards the door.  
  
Luckily, the garage is quiet, and the room Ignis and yourself call home empty.  
  
You sit on the edge of your bed, hunched over, pulling at your hair, wishing your heart to stop beating so fast.  
  
_It was just a touch,_ you tell yourself.  
  
_He stopped when you protested,_ you tell yourself.  
  
Why does it hurt so much? Why do you feel like you're dying? Why can't you just be normal, do normal things, react in normal ways?  
  
_Stupid, stupid, stupid, worthless, object, MT, inhuman, fucktoy—  
_  
Your breaths come too fast, and your head pounds worse with every insult you call yourself. Your heart really does feel like it's going to rip through your chest, and in fear of being at death's door, you summon a hi-potion from the Armiger.  
  
Except, in your panicked state, it doesn't work.  
  
You end up falling to the floor of your room with a heavy thud as something distinctly not a curative materializes in your hand. Your fingers throb under the weight of the gray, metal thing you just pulled out of thin air. After you yank your hand out from underneath it you find that it's given you a neat slice through the skin on your thumb.  
  
You look back to the object, and find you actually recognize it.  
  
"Holy shit," you murmur.  
  
It's an auto-crossbow. Damn, it looks out of place in the haven that is Hammerhead. It's a piece of Niff tech—what was it doing in the Armiger?  
  
Your heart still pounds, but after the distraction you discover you can breathe easier, at least.  
  
The cut on your hand shimmers red; you need to take care of that.  
  
You step over the auto-crossbow and into the hall, heading for the kitchen and the basic first aid kit you know Cindy keeps in there. You flick on the light by the entrance, and by the time you've peeled the wrapper off of a disposable bandage the party must have ended, because you hear steps up the stairs.  
  
"Yes, quite tired myself," you hear Ignis saying, "being around that many people was frankly exhausting. I don't blame him."  
  
"Heh," Cindy laughs slightly, "'fraid I can't relate with ya on the exhaustion, but I don't blame him either. Hope he's doin' okay."  
  
"I suppose we'll see. Good night, Cindy, I—what the hell?"  
  
"Hey," you pop into the hallway, halfway through applying the bandage, "wait, don't go in, Iggy."  
  
"What in tarnation is that thing?" Cindy asks, looking between the hulking piece of Niff tech in the middle of your room, and yourself. Ignis stands awkwardly in the doorway, the tip of his cane still pressing against the auto-crossbow.  
  
"It's, uh," you clear your throat to kick the tremor out of your voice, "it's a long story. Sorry, I'll move it, just..."  
  
Your vision begins to blur. Damn it all, you don't need this right now, but it proves difficult to fight. You try and try to refocus your eyes, to no avail.  
  
Then Cindy says, "Prompto?" and it's enough to tether yourself to, to pull yourself out of the no-man's-land that is your thoughts.  
  
"Yeah, shit. Sorry."  
  
You walk towards the door. It takes you less than a second to do three things: consider brushing against Ignis to get inside, throw an unexpected _whore_ at yourself, and ultimately decide against it. Instead you reach in and past him, focusing what concentration you have to dissolve it back into the Armiger.  
  
"Okay, now you can walk again. Sorry about that."  
  
"What was it? It felt rather bulky."  
  
"Just something I found in the Armiger. Well, by accident, I was trying to summon a potion, and for some reason that was what came out."  
  
"Didn't look like it was from 'round here." Cindy scratches her head. "Somethin' you brought when you left the Niffs?"  
  
"No, actually," you say, beckoning her inside with yourself and Ignis. "I don't know where it came from. I just accidentally pulled it out."  
  
"Now that I recall, we did collect a few fallen bits of machinery after certain encounters with Imperial dropships. Occasionally the MTs used rather interesting weapons. It was...Noct's idea, every time, but he certainly didn't know how to repair them.”  
  
You try not to bring up Noctis anymore; it's become a sort of unspoken rule between the two of you. Hearing his name makes your chest ache, and the dull thudding of your heart grow fast paced again.

“If it truly was accidental,” he continues, “perhaps the Armiger responded to your subconscious thoughts instead of your conscious ones. It’s occasionally finicky like that.”  
  
He says no more. Cindy seems to notice how you're shying away from touch tonight, and guides Ignis to sit on his bed by herself.

"Last we checked, the machine was damaged seemingly beyond fixing,” he adds once settled.  
  
"Really? Lemme check."  
  
You kneel down on your bed, and now that you know it's there, summon the auto-crossbow back out of the Armiger. It makes the mattress sag, and is probably ripping your quilt with some of the jagged metal bits sticking out of it, but you don't care.  
  
Cindy gives an impressed whistle, and comes around your other side to take a look. "She's purty, if a bit clunky ‘n broken."  
  
The thing that you know and they don't is that the damage actually isn’t all that serious. There's a heavy dent in the top, near the barrel; it looks like it got hit with the dull end of a blade, and only to cripple the thing, not to destroy it. It was probably Gladio's doing, as he's more about brute force and temporary solutions rather than finesse or strategy.  
  
Ack. Another name you try not to think about, anymore. This night keeps getting better and better.  
  
"What I'm most interested in is how you managed to summon something like _that_ by accident. Was something the matter when you pulled it out?"  
  
Your hand stills over the metal. Those words crack open the floodgates you thought had closed, however slightly.  
  
_Worthless. Whore. Fucktoy._  
  
"Nothing important," is your final answer.  
  
"See you've got a cut there, on your thumb. Is that what you needed the potion for?" Cindy asks.  
  
"Sure." You realize how fake that sounds the moment it leaves your mouth.  
  
"Prompto—" Cindy starts again, voice quiet.  
  
"Look," you hold out a hand towards her, "I don't want to talk about it. Okay?"  
  
She shrinks back enough it makes you feel bad, and swallows. Her eyes get shifty. "'Kay."  
  
"I could probably repair this thing," you say, returning the room's attention to the auto-crossbow. "Do you think we have the supplies?"  
  
Cindy shakes herself out of the state your reaction put her in, and bends over to take a closer look at the thing.  
  
"Hmm...I'm sure if you looked 'round the garage hard enough, you'd find a few nice substitutes. Wouldn't look quite the same, cause all we got's Lucian materials."  
  
"Nah, the look doesn't really matter."  
  
"What are you planning to do with it, once repaired?" Ignis pipes up.  
  
You hadn't considered that, actually. You remember the high marks you got in Tools training, the only highest you got outside of Marksmanship. Maybe you've still got the touch.  
  
"I could use it," you say.  
  
Ignis's nose and brow scrunch in the way they do when he hears something he disapproves of.  
  
"You don't fight daemons."  
  
"Maybe I could save it for when I do."  
  
Ignis draws his mouth into a thin, terse line. "Maybe so."  
  
"You could sell it," Cindy suggests. "Give the buyer a tutorial, then let 'em run wild."  
  
"How—how do you know you'll be successful in repairing it? Are you really that sure?"  
  
_Ignis just stammered,_ you think. _That's new.  
_  
You look up over the crossbow and towards him. He sags against his pillows, cane in its usual location leaned up against the side table. His hands are clasped tightly in his lap, and that's when you notice he's still dressed.  
  
"Pretty sure," you say, and pull the auto-crossbow back into the Armiger. "I was trained extensively on how they work. Would it be okay if I worked on it tomorrow?"  
  
Cindy nods. "Long as you ain't shirkin' your job and there ain't nothin at the perimeter cameras, then I say go for it."  
  
You muster the energy and genuine excitement for a, "Sweet!"  
  
You're sure there won't be. Daemons have long since learned to stay away from Hammerhead, which makes your job as a glorified security guard boring. "Anyway, I think we should probably all get to bed. It’s probably past midnight, yeah?”  
  
Cindy looks like she's going to pipe up and say something before Ignis says, "Yes, it's quite late. I think we are all very tired. Please sleep well, Cindy.”  
  
She stands from your bed, and walks to the door of the room looking only at your face.  
  
"Night, y’all!" she waves,, and shuts the door behind her.  
  
Ignis pulls himself upwards, and begins to wrestle out of his suit jacket.  
  
"We left before it ended, you should know."  
  
"Huh? Why?"  
  
"We were worried." Then he nods towards the wall. "You can turn that light out. I will be sleeping in my underclothing tonight."  
  
_Worried._ Guilt laps at the shores of your mind as you switch the room's lights off, and climb out of your pants.  
  
Gods, this is your fault. You made them leave early. That's why they were acting so weird. Cindy's probably in her room, silently disappointed. You have no idea what Ignis is feeling, but due to his body language and his unusual stammering he's likely disappointed too.  
  
It's your fault. Fuck. Everything's your fault, if you think about it. Freaking out because of a harmless touch, having this stupid mental illness to begin with, allowing yourself to get recaptured at the end of your time in Niflheim, being so useless in the very beginning that the only thing the Empire figured you were good for was to be a whore— _your fault, your fault, your fault...  
_  
You climb into your bed, pulling the quilt up around your shoulders. With your ear pressed against your pillow, you can hear your heart beating faster and faster again.  
  
"Prompto?"  
  
You turn, to face the direction of Ignis's voice. The outline of his bed frame is barely visible in the darkness.  
  
"What's up?"  
  
"Be sure to get some rest."  
  
Ignis says no more.  
  
  
******  
  
  
The day after a panic attack is always worse than actually having one.  
  
You wake up in the morning and instantly regret it. Your whole body feels sluggish and slow, like it's playing catch up on all the energy you expended by flipping out the day prior. Responding to simple greetings, like Cindy's usual, "Howdy, Prompto!" and Ignis's, "Did you sleep well?" is like moving mountains, and the two of them both give you odd looks as it takes you longer than it should to shoot a greeting back.  
  
It's somewhat of a lucky thing that your job in the outpost is to watch the security feeds of the perimeter's cameras. When you have your bad days like this, it's easy to get lost in the nothingness of the on-screen feeds, letting go of appearances. As long as you're doing your job, not a soul wandering in or out of the garage seems to care how blank, how distressed, or how weighed down and tired you look.  
  
Today's different, though.  
  
You still stand in front of the security monitors, but your fingers dance over the familiar ins and outs of the auto-crossbow. Occasionally you make a detour into dusty corners of the garage, searching for bits of metal, replacements for the arrows that must be loaded into the machine for it to work, scrap to patch over the many dents and holes it has.  
  
And Gods, it's a blessing.  
  
Any fears, any exhaustion, any feeling of worthlessness stills as you work, stalling until it slowly ebbs away. In the world of technology, in fixing what's broken, things make sense. Problems have simple solutions, and when they don't it's merely because you haven't found the missing piece yet.  
  
You don't have to think about your life. All that exists is the auto-crossbow, and your ability to make it whole again.  
  
If only your mind were so easily fixed.  
  
When the crossbow is complete, three days after the panic attack that started you on this project in the first place, you test it in the back of the garage. Cindy and Ignis stand nearby, sitting on the stairs leading to the apartment and watching you set up.  
  
"Don't we have, like, targets?" you ask them. "From last year when Iggy wanted to practice with his knives?"  
  
Ignis shifts in his seat, looking uncomfortable.  
  
Cindy stands.  
  
"Yup! They're pretty silly lookin', though. I think they're out back..."  
  
You help her haul in the slapdash targets from the lot behind the garage. They look nearly untouched, since they were put together. A few nicks sit here and there, scratched into the paint, but other than that they're pretty pristine. You guess Ignis didn't manage to get much use out of them.  
  
Once they sit in place, you heft the crossbow into your arms.  
  
"Alright, guys. Stay back," you warn.  
  
Come to think, it's probably a terrible idea to test the thing out inside, but the thought only occurs to you once you've hit the trigger.  
  
The targets are obliterated by the projectiles that fly out of the crossbow, although they all fly in different directions; proof that you really would need the proper Niff-made arrows in order to utilize its maximum potential.  
  
Still, that's some result.  
  
"Well, I'll be," Cindy remarks when she comes out of covering herself from the debris, "ya really could sell that to a Hunter and make a pretty penny."  
  
"It _sounded_ quite dangerous," Ignis snarks.  
  
"Worked pretty well." You walk forward to inspect the damage more closely. The targets were only wooden; the things this machine could do to the daemons...  
  
You turn back to Ignis. "Didn't you say there were more of these in the Armiger?"  
  
  
******  
  
  
Two weeks later, Cindy approaches you with an offer.  
  
"The Hunters nearby are catchin' glimpses of what y'all've been up to, y'know. Been asking me if you take modification requests."  
  
You straighten in your chair instantaneously.  
  
"No way, really?"  
  
"Yup. So, I got a question too..."  
  
She pulls the brim of her baseball cap upwards, revealing her sparkling eyes.  
  
"Do you?" she finishes, a grin threatening to escape onto her face.  
  
You look back at the security monitors, then to her.  
  
"What about the cameras?"  
  
She shrugs, placing her hands square on her hips. "Can hire any ol' Hunter to do that in their downtime, can't I?"  
  
Your heart skips a couple beats. Normally that feeling is a bad sign, proof that fear is monopolizing your whole body, but not today.  
  
You're excited. The thought of modifying weapons for people, repairing them—it makes you feel genuinely happy. That's a first, since the world went dark.  
  
"Totally! Yes!" you beam  
  
Cindy beams, too, and escorts you around the garage to set up a designated area for your work.  
  
It takes a few hours, but at the end of it there's a simple workbench pressed up against the far right wall of the the garage, next to the door leading out back. On top rests a lamp, the cobbled together toolbox you've been using for your repairs to the Niff machinery, and the handful of other tools Cindy’s Paw-Paw used to modify weapons when he still ran the place.  
  
After taking your wooden chair from the security monitor desk to the bench, then stealing a cushion for it from one of the kitchen chairs upstairs, you stand back with Cindy.  
  
"Well. It looks mighty fine," she says in appreciation.  
  
You fold your arms, and lean back on one foot.  
  
"Yup. Loving it."  
  
"Pretty as a picture."  
  
With her words, you can't help but think of the camera Noctis gave you, lying disused in the Armiger since...well. Since.  
  
You wonder if it still works.  
  
In a flash of blue, you summon the device into your waiting hands. It looks pretty normal, minus the thin layer of dust that covers it.  
  
Things can get dusty in the Armiger? Huh.  
  
Just holding the thing again is deeply weird. Booting it up, waiting maybe in vain for the display to turn on is even weirder, and worse.  
  
Your stomach does flips while Cindy leans over and asks, "How long've you had that thing?"  
  
You shrug. "Noct gave it to me, before he left."  
  
"No wonder I've yet to take a looksee."  
  
The pad of your thumb hovers over the button that brings up the photo gallery. Instead of pressing it, you switch gears, and open up the menu of filters.  
  
_Use it_ , something in you whispers, and you can't argue. Despite the complicated, bittersweet memories behind its sitting in your hands, the camera feels familiar. Comfortable. Like the closest you've ever felt to home, in a weird way.  
  
"Do you wanna get in my shot of the bench?" you ask her.  
  
"Uh," she backs up from peering over your shoulder, "sure! Lemme just..."  
  
She pulls up the neck of her low-cut tank top past her overalls a bit, just enough so her bra doesn't peek out. She moves in front of the door beside your new work space, and waves a hand high in the air, beaming like she did when she suggested you get all this set up in the first place.  
  
The camera clicks, the shutter closes for an instant, and that's that. You take a couple more, and even manage to convince yourself it's to test out some of the filters you've forgotten instead of your trembling so hard you screw up some of the shots.  
  
Cindy bounds back over to you, once done.  
  
"Let's check 'em out!" she laughs. "Bet they're great."  
  
Your thumb hovers over the photo gallery button again.  
  
You hesitate.  
  
"L-let me get a couple more shots of the bench by itself, 'kay?"  
  
"'Kay!"  
  
Cindy disappears into the upstairs for a few minutes while you make good on your excuse. She comes back down holding a dark green bottle labeled PULSE BEER, and suggests the two of you head out into the back lot of the garage.  
  
The chilling breeze of eternal night laps at your shoulders, but not enough to hurt. The temperature seems to be forgiving enough, tonight.  
  
The two of you plop down on the sandy, wooden step that leads down from the door and onto the ground below, and Cindy waits as you hesitate again.  
  
"So...not all of the pictures on here are mine," you feel the need to disclaim. "Most of them, at least, so far, were taken by Noctis, before he met me. Just...fair warning."  
  
It's more of a warning to yourself than to her.  
  
You sigh, relent, and push the button.  
  
One by one, the photos pop up—bits of landscape from when the Sun was still a thing, group pictures with a smiling Gladio and an unscarred Ignis, blurry attempts at capturing whatever non-vegetable dish had been chosen for dinner at camp that day.  
  
Then, of course, there's you.  
  
In the first photo you're in, you look off Lestallum's outlook. Your arms hang somewhat rigidly at your sides,—a combination of leftover military training and sheer fear—but it doesn't detract from how wistful you appear, staring off into the afternoon sun, your hair set askew with the wind.  
  
Beside you, captured mid-motion, is a smudge of red and gray.  
  
"What's that?" Cindy asks, pointing towards it.  
  
You lower the camera a little, away from her finger.  
  
"That's...that's, um...that's...Ardyn."  
  
His name immediately sours the lighthearted mood the two of you had built.  
  
Cindy moves to pick at a spot on her forearm, somehow managing to balance the beer bottle while doing so.  
  
"Oh," is all she says.  
  
You don't say anything back, just skip to the next image, and the next, and the next, trying to put it out of your head.  
  
"Reminds me," Cindy says, rolling her bottle between her hands now, "I wanna say sorry, 'bout that party I dragged y’all to."  
  
You laugh an awkward little, _ha_ , and look to her.  
  
"You're still hung up on that? It was weeks ago."  
  
Cindy grips her beer.  
  
"I understand it, y'know."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why you panicked and left."  
  
You lean forward, elbows on your knees. "What do you mean?"  
  
She looks at her bottle, whispers, "May the Six have mercy," and takes a swig. As soon as she swallows, out comes, "It's happened to me too. Ain't as bad as you but, Bahamut's Arsenal, bad enough."  
  
About a thousand thoughts race through your head in the split second after she says that. Everything and nothing, all at once. Even after grasping the whole meaning of the sentence, you still don't know what to say.  
  
"You mean, you were...you know...raped?"  
  
Your chest constricts. It's such a dirty, ugly concept, encapsulating nearly every way Ardyn treated you in a single word. You hate talking about it, but you need to clarify.  
  
"Nah. Almost. Some feller tore my shorts nearly in half before Paw-Paw ran a spear through him. It was terrifyin', even if nothin' actually happened."  
  
She gulps down more of her drink. "Wasn't the only time either. We got a list somewhere in the back of all the men who're banned from these premises on account of assaultin' the owner's granddaughter. Now the owner, heheh. That'll show those sons of bitches."  
  
The weight of the revelation sits like a block in your stomach. You watch as she tucks a stray curl behind her ear.  
  
_She's as broken as you are._  
  
"How long did it go on for?"  
  
She looks into her bottle. "Not anymore, I can tell ya. I still get hit on, but the attempts died out a while back. Last one happened, I was...sixteen? I reckon?"  
  
"Oh, gods," you look at the black sky above, "that's young."  
  
She shrugs. "Didn't seem to matter to them."  
  
"At least..." You set the camera between the two of you, and find your barcode. "At least Ardyn waited, you know? According to Ignis, I'm twenty-one, and a few years ago was when he started doing his thing, so I was probably eighteen. I'm sorry."  
  
"That's mighty young too, if ya think 'bout it. Besides, ya'll didn't know what sex even was. Must've been worse. _Was_ worse. I can't imagine what you must've felt like. I wasn't e'en properly fucked."  
  
"That's a good thing, though. I mean, we don't have to compare what we went through."  
  
Cindy draws back, looking at you like what you just said didn't make any sense. When her expression softens finally, she looks into her beer bottle again, and gulps down the last of it.  
  
"I reckon so. S'just...easier. I dunno if that makes sense. Mm, but anyway."  
  
She's slurring just a bit more, now.  
  
"Anyway, I get how ya felt. At the party. Someone touched you wrong, you panicked, you left. That sorta thing used to happen to me all the time. Panic attacks, nightmares. Never had any flashbacks, that one was Paw-Paw's bag."  
  
You don't feel comfortable following that last train of thought, so instead you ask, "Are you okay now?"  
  
Cindy outright giggles. "Hun, ain't no one okay now."  
  
You roll your eyes. "I mean about what happened."  
  
"Yeah? I ain't cured, that's for sure, but it don't bother me as much anymore. Only problem, the Oracle's dead."  
  
Well, that is a problem, at least according to Noctis and Ignis, but what does that have to do with what Cindy's talking about?  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Alrighty, so," Cindy sets her empty bottle beside her, "since I was a young'un, I had the biggest crush you'd ever seen on Princess Lunafreya. Oh, the fantasies I had about that woman!" She nearly dissolves into giggles, but holds back the dam. "Picture it: a Princess, chosen by the Six themselves, gettin' to know a cute mechanic girl, an' settlin' down with her. Livin' a domestic life. It's right plumb stupid, is what it was."  
  
The thought of Cindy and what you remember of Luna as a couple—it's nice. You picture all the stains that Luna would have gotten on her dresses, and can't help but smile.  
  
"I think it's cute," you say, and can't help but giggle yourself.  
  
"Well, it gets better, 'cause when I was a teenager and dealin' with all my bullshit, I didn't feel worthy of her. And it hurt, 'till I realized that bein' touched don't make me unloveable. Don't mean it was clear sailin', after that, but it helped. By the time your little Prince drove through here, I reckoned maybe I had a chance to meet her, even if she was married to someone else."  
  
"Being touched doesn't make me unloveable," you echo.  
  
"Then, 'course, the world," she swipes her hands on her overalls and stands, "went to shit. Now all them dreams of domestic life are _whoosh_ ," she waves her arms, "gone."  
  
She looks towards the sky.  
  
"Shouldn't say that," she shakes her head. "Can't lose hope. Not in your little friend." She looks back towards you, on the step.  
  
"You mean Noct?"  
  
"The King Of Light, they're callin' him."  
  
"You don't believe it?"  
  
"Naw, I do."  
  
You pick up her beer bottle and rise to her side.  
  
"Paw-Paw did too. Ol' King Reggie was one of his best friends way back in the day, y'know. He's always known somethin' was up with him and what he heard 'bout his son. It's jus' kinda...frightenin' to realize you're a part of those prophecies and tales you've heard so much about. Excitin' too, but...what 'bout you, you got any opinions of the Dawn King?"  
  
Opinions of Noctis. You reflect on the memories you have of him, now over a year old.  
  
"Noct's kind. And he's brave. He really just wanted to do the right thing, you know? Like, always. He even let himself fall into a trap, just so he could save me from Ardyn."  
  
_You weren't worth it,_ your mind helpfully supplies.  
  
"Wasn't a super good idea, but, here we are. I mean, if it wasn't for me, the Sun would probably be back already."  
  
Cindy notices you wringing the neck of her bottle, and pulls it from your hands with little effort.  
  
"Shouldn't say that 'bout yourself. Knowin' what I do about the boy, he probably charged in there with eyes only for you."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Noctis don't seem to think about the consequences of his actions much. He does what he thinks is right, others be damned. You know, I reckon he really likes you."  
  
The aching of your heart swallows any words you could say in response.  
  
If only there was a way to ask him, to make sure, to find out if you truly were worth saving.  
  
Cindy's eyes reflect the lights of the outpost, but also echo the same wistfulness you saw in them when she talked about Luna. Her lashes flutter down to her cheek when she closes her eyes, and when she exhales, her breath is fog in the night air.  
  
"Y'know what they say, quit mopin', keep hopin'. And I think...it's gonna be okay, y'hear? In the end."  
  
You nod. "Ignis says the Prophecy said so, and I trust them. Whatever our suffering means, the Sun's gonna rise, no matter what."  
  
Cindy beams. "Darn tootin'."  
  
She sits back down, and looks up at you with a look of what you can only describe as utter compassion.  
  
"Now. How 'bout the rest of those photos?"


	3. Year 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter airing will return to the normal Friday morning time next week. It's also worth pointing out that at the time of writing this, I had not played nor spoiler'd myself for Comrades, so I apologize for not addressing Libertus at ALL here. Had I known, he would be front and center.
> 
> Regardless, I hope you enjoy. :)

You'd almost think it was the second coming of Noctis himself, when Cor Leonis arrives to inspect Hammerhead outpost.  
  
The local Hunters milling about treat him as if he's a celebrity, which he might as well be, nowadays. Some ballsy passersby even try to get his number, or _any_ kind of contact info from him, which attempts he shuts down.  
  
Ignis treats him like an old friend, asking for any information on Gladio and Lestallum. Cindy recognizes him, offers him a place to stay in the garage.  
  
You?  
  
You have no idea who he is. Of course, he could say the same about you. He does, in fact, when he sees how tight knit you are with the rest of the Hammerhead crew.  
  
Ignis pushes his sunglasses up on his nose, while introducing you.  
  
"This is Prompto. He is an ex-MT, and friend of the King."  
  
Cor narrows his eyes slightly, focusing on your own.  
  
"Friend of the King? When?"  
  
"During our quest to collect the Royal Arms, he defected from his position at the Chancellor's side, and joined our posse."  
  
"I mod and repair weapons," you give a little wave, "and take pictures. That's basically it. Sir."  
  
"You're not a Hunter?"  
  
Your eyes dart to Ignis. You hate it when people bring this up.  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"Were you trained at all, in Niflheim?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Well, obviously something was trained into you. You don't have to call me that, kid."  
  
"Sorry s-Cor. Sorry, Cor."  
  
"Why aren't you hunting?"  
  
"There are extraneous circumstances—" Ignis tries to interrupt.  
  
"I have PTSD."  
  
Cor raises an eyebrow.  
  
"From fighting?"  
  
"From, uh," you pick at the wristband you have concealing your barcode, "other things."  
  
He folds his arms. "Do I want to know?"  
  
"Hah." You shake your head.  
  
"Hm."  
  
Finally, he takes his attention off you, and onto Cindy, who stands to your right.  
  
"I think I'll take up your offer on shelter," he nods.  
  
This is how you get Captain of the New Kingsglaive, Cor, living with you in Hammerhead for the third year of darkness.  
  
  
******  
  
  
He's unobtrusive to everyone but you, it seems.  
  
Every morning at about three a.m., you hear the floorboards by Cindy's room creak as he goes out to hunt whatever ridiculous, monstrous bounty he has waiting for him today. When he's out hunting, or exploring the torn down outposts around Leide, no one seems to worry about him. It's only about a month into his stay with you that you learn his nickname of "Cor The Immortal".  
  
Sometimes, he leaves for days. He'll go to Galdin Quay, not a day's drive away from here, bringing back with him fish and seaweed for those who eat, and shells, for the only person that doesn't.  
  
There aren't many of them. Every time you're brought a new one you spend an afternoon obsessing over it, taking pictures of it alone and with the others he’s given you, before placing it beside your camera on the workbench Cindy gave you.  
  
Despite the gifts, you're not sure how to feel about him. He's new, he's foreign, he's almost like an _invader_ in your life, ridding routines and places that you had started to find familiar of their sense of safety.  
  
Then he actively approaches you.  
  
Cor towers over you as you sit at your workbench, repairing a lance for a local Hunter. He's not as tall as Ardyn—thank the Six, you might have a panic attack on the spot—but his looming is more than uncomfortable.  
  
Eventually, he pulls up a box from the side of the room, and sits in front of you.  
  
"What are you working on?" he asks.  
  
You shrug. "Someone wanted me to augment their lance by Saturday with this Earth Gemstone they found." Clear, concise; you hope that's the end of the conversation.  
  
"Did you wield spears?"  
  
You shake your head. "Nope."  
  
"What was your weapon of choice?"  
  
"Guns, and the tools they gave me."  
  
Cor hums to himself. He leans forward, not quite encroaching on your workspace, hands clasped just slightly.  
  
"When I was a cadet," he speaks softly, "I went on a mission to Niflheim."  
  
Your hands freeze mid-motion, though you try to cover it up and get moving again.  
  
"Back then, we didn't know any better, about the MT program. We all thought that the Empire was churning out robots."  
  
"You're not that far off." You deliberately avoid his eyes.  
  
"We were. I saw the children with my own eyes. I was..." he draws his fingers tighter together, "going to rescue one."  
  
That gets your attention.  
  
You look up at him, and his eyes meet yours, completely level.  
  
"We were recalled before I got the chance. Someone fucked up, and we had to get out. But I still remember looking into those test tubes and thinking...'one of these children could have a better life than whatever they're fated to be here. They might even change something about this world.'"  
  
His face remains steady, his expression practiced. You think you're staring at him slack-jawed.  
  
"It's haunted me. And now," he unclasps a hand, waving it over your desk, "you're here. I'm sorry, but I'm fascinated."  
  
You set down your tools completely.  
  
"I'm not really much to be fascinated by." You tuck a stray hair behind your ear. "I'm not special. I'm just me. Prompto."  
  
"Were there others that defected?"  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"I'd say that's pretty damn special, then."  
  
"Well," you pull your chair up closer to the table, "usually defective MTs, like, the ones that show emotion or don't react well to the training get decommissioned on the spot. I sucked at both, and yet wasn't."  
  
Cor doesn't need to ask; the question's already in his eyes. Honestly, you don't know if you want to explain what happened after that point to someone who's still a stranger.  
  
You swallow, and recall Ardyn's excuse from when you first met Noctis: "The Chancellor wanted me as his assistant. It was a sort of...get out of jail free card. I took the position and defected three years later, to be with Noctis."  
  
Cor sits up. "So you never completed training."  
  
"Nah."  
  
He considers this. "Would you like to?"  
  
Normally your traumatic stress is siphoned from Ardyn's abuse—all the things he did to you in his bed and out. Yet when Cor says this, flashes of long forgotten memories pop into your head; being beaten by members of your contingent, the choking fear of decommissioning, watching attempted defectors be tortured and murdered, the whips, the sparring, the backhands.  
  
You remember thinking that, despite it being what you'd always known, existing couldn't get much worse than that.  
  
You remember how grateful you were when Ardyn had appeared, all soft touches and mellifluous voice.  
  
Cor must see the pained look that appears on your face and watch your skin pale, because he follows up with, "Let me rephrase that. Do you want to learn how to defend yourself and your King, when he returns?"  
  
You swallow, but it doesn't do much. What moisture was in your mouth is now gone. "I don't think Ignis would let me." Your fingers drift to your temple. "I'm still not totally okay, up here."  
  
"You don't need to worry about him. Do _you_ want to?"  
  
It's hard to care about yourself, but at the thought of Noctis, you give it thought.  
  
"How can I protect Noct?"  
  
For the first time since you've met him, Cor gives you a small smile.  
  
"Glaive training."  
  
  
******  
  
  
Just behind the garage is a wide, sandy rectangle, fenced into the main building. No plants grow there, and the fences are tall enough to block any tumbleweeds that might try to blow in. Higher still are stadium lights that act as one half of the force that keeps the daemons at bay.  
  
Cor stands straight and tall, his back to the west fence. You stand opposite him, a little more insecure.  
  
Ignis had disapproved of your plans, but, due to Cor's insistence, laid off his complaints at least. You find it a little ridiculous how they argue over your autonomy, like you can't make decisions by yourself. In some ways, it reminds you of being in Ardyn's control. Someone always seems to call the shots but you.  
  
The first training session isn't difficult at all. Cor doesn't know everything there is to know about wielding guns, but he knows enough to judge your skill level. You spend several hours shooting at different things; targets, clay pottery, even Cor himself, with a shield.  
  
"You're good," he says afterwards, "mechanical, even. You'll need to keep practicing if you don't want those skills to atrophy, but getting out in the field that shouldn't be hard. What else do you know?"  
  
The next session, you show him your prowess at using the tools you've found and repaired; the auto-crossbow, the circular saw, the drill, the bio blaster. They deal heavy damage, and Cor is as impressed with the repairs and adjustments you’ve made to the tech as he is with your skill.

  
"What else do you have?" he asks after praising you.  
  
That’s when your mind goes blank.  
  
Hand to hand sparring? You were always the first to be beaten.  
  
Swords? Oh, gods, you don't have the balance for that.  
  
Daggers? You're pretty lithe, but not as lithe as say, Ignis, used to be.  
  
Axes? Ramuh's Light, they're too heavy.  
  
Your response is mostly to stare ahead. Eventually you manage to lift a finger, saying, "Um."  
  
His eyes crinkle, and one of his eyebrows lifts. "You failed everything else?"  
  
"Uh," you run your fingers over your wristband, "yup. Pretty much."  
  
"Did you have something like a runner up category?"  
  
"I guess...maybe...I was decent at whacking people with sharp things at close range, but there's no, like, skill in that. Just flailing. Mostly." You wince.  
  
This is the point where Cor steps closer. Where he, the first person since you got here, sees exactly how worthless you truly are. He'll say you're not cut out to be a Glaive, you're not good enough to stand by Noctis and protect him. You're just a waste of space, and if you're not sucking anyone off you should probably just—  
  
"Looks like we have our first gunman of the Kingsglaive," Cor says.  
  
Everything stills.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Of course, guns can't be the only thing you're adept in. I plan on adopting you as a pupil, for the rest of my stay here, to teach you basic swordplay and hand-to-hand.”  
  
The world stutters, like the sound your camera makes before the lens adjusts and the picture is taken.  
  
"I—I'm not," you start, but one look at Cor's cool determination has you reconsider what you're about to say.  
  
"We start tomorrow," he says, walking past. "Same time. See you then, rookie."  
  
A slight cloud of dust trails behind him as he steps into the garage, and the breeze whips it into your face.  
  
"O-okay, then."  
  
  
******  
  
  
True to your memories, you're terrible at everything Cor tries to teach you from this point on.  
  
First on the list is what he describes as "simple blocking techniques". There's a whole bunch of them, arranged in a single fluid movement you're expected to memorize. At the very least, you're expected to keep them in short-term memory, for when he brings any specific one back up later in the session.  
  
But the world is blurry; you can't keep your eyes open all the way. You feel like you're wading through mud, thick and hip-deep. More than that, you can't help but remember the nightmare you had last night—face pressed into Ardyn's scarlet sheets, suffocating as you felt him slamming into you.  
  
Cor calls for you to show him block number one, and it takes you probably ten seconds to recognize what he's talking about, then pull out block number three by accident.  
  
At the end of that first lesson, he claps you on the shoulder. You shudder at his touch, and concern passes through his face in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it instant.  
  
"It gets easier, kid," he says.  
  
It doesn't.  
  
Nightmares aren't to blame either, even though they don't help the situation.  
  
After a week of sessions entirely about those basic blocks, you think you might have the first three memorized. Sometimes it takes a second too long to pull it up from the depths of your mind, but you manage at least to produce the correct one he calls for.  
  
On the next Monday, the shame that courses through you when Cor says, "We can work on the other three you were supposed to learn last week," is thick and heavy, like how it must feel to be injected with daemon blood.  
  
You go to bed as soon as the session ends that day, ignoring the mod requests you have piling up and falling face first into your pillow.  
  
The next week is a similar story, and somehow harder because Cor mixes in the little you've learned with what he's currently teaching you.  
  
"Upper left block," he calls, and with it comes a wave of fear, the annoying, stupid voices in your head overflowing it with their mantras.  
  
_You're going to mess it up, you will never be any good at fighting, you will never be more than a whore._  
  
You choke up and fidget, the thoughts acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  
  
Cor stands, impassive, not showing any emotion one way or another. His eyes still train on your form, waiting, and the disciplined patience he exudes makes you want to curl up and die right there in the sand because _you don't deserve this_.  
  
You failed your initial training. You were going to die for that failure. You can't even remember the bare bones of blocking hand-to-hand attacks on a regular basis.  
  
How are you going to protect yourself?  
  
How are you going to protect _Noctis?_  
  
_Maybe_ , the voices in the back of your head whisper, _maybe you could just bend over and serve him like you did Ardyn. It's all you'll ever be good at_.  
  
"Upper left block," Cor calls again and adds, "I know you can do it."  
  
But how does he know?  
  
He doesn't know anything about you, or what happened. If he did, you're certain he'd stop trying. He'd be disgusted, he'd pack up his things, he'd leave.  
  
Maybe he wouldn't, though. Maybe he'd understand so much he would make you kneel in the sand and wrap your lips around his—  
  
"I'm sorry," you call back, and it sounds suspiciously like a sob, "but I can't do this."  
  
With that, you make for the door leading inside.  
  
Only, you don't make it there.  
  
Cor's hand finds your shoulder, and twists you around until you're pressed against the metal wall beside it. He pins you down with only that one hand, pressed to where your shoulder meets your chest.  
  
The world goes slow and you see folds of gray, stained with your own blood.  
  
You look up from where his hand lies, and find it's hard to tell where Cor begins and Ardyn ends.  
  
"Listen, kid. I want to help you learn these vital skills. I want to be your trainer. In order to accomplish those things, I have to be working with someone willing and able." His hand fists into the sleeve of your black tank. "Do you want this or not?"  
  
It's a question. A question demands a response, or else.  
  
Somewhere, there's a disconnect. Words that are distinctly not a direct answer leave your mouth.  
  
"H-hand," you say, "your hand..."  
  
Cor glances down at the fistful of your shirt he's taken, then back to your face, and releases you.  
  
"Kid."  
  
You slide down the wall, into an unseeing heap. Your vision blurs and with it the sandy training lot, Hammerhead itself.  
  
You lie in silken sheets, chest heaving, legs still quaking and insides burning from Ardyn's orgasm.  
  
He'll get into moods like this in the middle of the night. You'll wake up to him on top of you, inside you, panting and thrusting and clawing into your skin, then rolling over to sleep again once he's spent.  
  
You shake, you hear blood rushing in your ears. Your body doesn't so much scream as mewl in agony. It craves nothing more than death.  
  
"Kid. Kid. Prompto!"  
  
The blood red memory fades into darker hues. The sheets give way to something gritty, painful and unpleasant to press against.  
  
"Fuck," a familiar voice says, following the curse with a string of others.  
  
You close your eyes. Gods, you're tired. You usually ache after being fucked but this is utter exhaustion, like you're the one who came.  
  
Ardyn's gone, at least, and your surroundings are familiar enough that the pain in your chest eases just so, letting you drift into something like sleep.  
  
  
******  
  
  
You come to in your bed.  
  
Your eyelids feel heavy, like you haven't gotten nearly enough sleep, but at the same time it's felt like ages since you were last awake.  
  
Cor stands in the doorway, leaning back against the frame. He hears you rustling in your bedding, and tilts his head to look at you.  
  
"You're awake. Good." He straightens, and lifts his hands up as if to say, ‘ _I'm innocent’._ "Can I come in?" he asks.  
  
Cor. Cor sent you into a flashback, however long ago. Cor pressed you against the wall, was he going to fuck you? It felt like it, at the time.  
  
"Are you gonna touch me?"  
  
"Wasn't planning on it."  
  
He probably understands. He probably saw your reaction to his actions and learned from it.  
  
Right?  
  
"Okay," you acquiesce.  
  
He enters the room, but doesn't near you. Instead, he stands at the foot of your bed, leaning against the far wall.  
  
"Are you alright?" is the first thing he asks.  
  
You shrug. "I guess. Flashbacks aren't very fun."  
  
"So I've heard." He pauses, looking aside. "What about your outburst before that?"  
  
You don't want to tell him. Your cheeks heat up in embarrassment, and you lift a hand to touch, finding familiar freckles and scars.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"That's not what I asked."  
  
If you tell him, he _will_ leave. You don't think you have much of a choice, though.  
  
"I'm...not very good at fighting. As you probably guessed. I'm—"  
  
"That's bullshit," Cor interrupts, "but I'll let you finish."  
  
_It's not,_ you think. "I mean, there's kind of a reason I failed training. There's only one thing I'm any good at, and it's probably the exact opposite of everything you want to teach me."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
Fuck. Walked right into that one.  
  
"I'm, um," you start. You can't seem to finish, and instead look to your quilt to find patterns to trace.  
  
"Kid." Cor unfolds from the wall, taking only two steps closer. "If you still want to go through with this and become a Glaive, you have to be honest with your trainer. Obviously what I said and did triggered you into a flashback. If you want me to help you, I have to know how to prevent that. You do not have to go into detail. Just have to let me know."  
  
"You're going to hate me, okay?"  
  
Silence fills the room. Cor places his fingers at the bridge of his nose, and exhales.  
  
"Listen. Most of the people I've trained, Hunters, Crownsguard, Glaives, have this illness. You're not special. I'm not going to hate you because of something that happened in your past. Frankly, I can't think of anyone here who would. Understand?"  
  
Your fingers rest on a particular patch of quilt, a triangle. You trace it over and over and over again, until his words sink through your skin, into the fear that's leftover in your chest.  
  
The feeling begins to thaw with the words, "I was Ardyn's whore."  
  
After that, things are easier. Words slide into their correct places, and though it's difficult, you manage to get through your explanation.  
  
"I just took it. I didn't want it, but I took it, because it was my job. It's what I'm good at. And back there, with the wall, that—that you pressed me against, I was _so_ sure that you were gonna wreck me."  
  
Cor waits for you to finish. When you do, you look up and realize that he's no longer impassive.  
  
You wouldn't say he's 'trembling with emotion' or anything. There's just a bit of concern there, like at that first training session when he clapped your shoulder too hard.  
  
He takes time to process the words, walking to the other side of the room, by Ignis's dresser.  
  
"Alright," he says, turning back to you, "I can work with that, if you still want to do this."  
  
A keen frustration wells up inside you.  
  
"But I'm not good enough."  
  
"Prompto, that's the point. Of course you're terrible. You just started, and have the odds stacked against you in the first place. There's no 'good enough' or 'bad enough' here, only learning."  
  
You consider that.  
  
"When it comes to your past," he continues, "that doesn't matter in the present. You've clearly defected, escaped and made a name for yourself beyond what you were before. Now, you want to serve the Kingdom. The world. As long as you are a willing and attentive pupil, accepting failure at face value," he gives you a judgmental look out of the corner of his eye, "you can achieve that."  
  
You are willing. You want to help. You want to do this, you want to get stronger and more physically active and aid the hunters in ways more than just fixing their weapons.  
  
The whispers in the back of your head are still there, but with Cor acting as if he's doing nothing but stating facts, they stay just that: whispers.  
  
"You're right." You stop focusing on the blanket and look up to his slate gray eyes. "It's hard. But I know you're right. I'm...sorry, for trying to run off."  
  
Cor shrugs. "I'm sorry for giving you a flashback. Seems like life dealt you a pretty shitty hand, kid."  
  
He makes for the door to your room, but pauses when his hand touches the doorknob.  
  
"Do you," he turns back, "have any interest in being taught some basic self-defense, besides the techniques I'm already going to teach?"  
  
"Like...what?"  
  
He looks up, as if praying to the gods for a way out of the conversation. "In case a creep tries to take advantage of you again. Moves to get out of those situations."  
  
The possibility of being assaulted should scare you, but instead his idea makes you smile wide.  
  
"That sounds amazing."  
  
Cor nods, "Good," and leaves the room.  
  
  
******  
  
  
It turns out he was right. It does get easier.  
  
Not right away, of course.  
  
The first month after the wall incident is a struggle. It's still so difficult to keep things straight in your head with your combination of anxiety and the way your mind naturally flits from one thing to the next. Cor, somehow, makes it work. He keeps you occupied, he gives you plenty of time to review old lessons, and though there are still exhausting, bed flumping days, you make it through.  
  
After a while, you start to take pictures. At first it's for a visual aid in your own practice, but it becomes more. Progress shots taken in the bathroom mirror being one such example.  
  
Noctis always liked taking pictures of you, so maybe when he comes back, he'll like seeing the ones you take of yourself? You hope so.  
  
On your roughest days, the thought of him being proud of your progress, of his soft smile, keeps you from backing down out of fear.  
  
You'll be the best Glaive he's ever had. You promise it.  
  
  
******  
  
  
The nightmare is a violent one.  
  
It's based on one of your many encounters with Ardyn while in Zegnautus Keep. Your mouth is filled with the familiar bumps and curves of his cock, the salty, musty taste and the cold of the organ something you never want to relive again.  
  
Funny, then, how that keeps happening.  
  
The tip of his shaft rubs against the back of your throat, which you remember made you vomit, but now causes you to think: _Cor taught me how to get out of a position like this months ago. Why am I still kneeling here?  
_  
That's how you end up curled into a fetal position in your bed, staring at the corner of the pillow you drooled on in your sleep.  
  
Your heart throbs, pulsing uncomfortably loud in your ears. A whirlwind rages in your mind, all circular thoughts and nauseating memories.  
  
You press your lips together. Manage to take a deep breath. Exhale against the dry of your pillowcase.  
  
_Hammerhead. Hammerhead. Safe.  
  
BANG.  
_  
The sound literally makes you jump up. You summon your gun and look towards your bedroom door in two painful thumps of your heart. You hold the weapon up, steady, safety off. Your left hand cradles your right, holding the base just lightly.  
  
You check your periphery, eyes still glued on the door.  
  
Ignis isn't in bed.  
  
The synapses in your hypervigilant brain fire, and after a moment neither are you.  
  
You slow your pace to a crawl once you clear the door, keeping your aim sure.  
  
There's a loud clatter to the right, and you walk toward it as silently as you can. You see something blue flickering on the paneled wall where the hallway opens up to the kitchen, and smell gas as you investigate inside.  
  
"Iggy?"  
  
The source of the blue light is from a lit burner on the stove, though no pan sits on top. The flame illuminates the chilling scene in equally cool tones; cupboards thrown open, pans and dishes strewn about the counter and floor by the stove, a mug broken in large chunks, a bottle of oil spilled dangerously close to the open flame, and in the middle of it all, Ignis.  
  
Ignis sits on the floor, with his side pressed against the handle of the broiler. His left hand lies flat on the top of the stove, skirting the edge of the aflame burner. He places his other on the floor and attempts to stand, but the force pushes his left hand onto the hot metal, just long enough for him to yelp and jerk away, lose his balance, and fall sideways.  
  
With a shake of your hand the Lion Heart disappears back into the Armiger, and you dive to catch his side before his head hits the hardwood floor.  
  
Ignis yelps again, the noise eerily uncharacteristic for him. He has one of his old daggers in his hand before you can blink and presses the tip right against your nose.  
  
"Who's there? Who is it?" He sounds frantic, panicked, like he got caught doing something he shouldn't.  
  
Meanwhile, you still teeter on the razor thin edge of fear your nightmare brought you to, and the knife makes everything worse.  
  
"I don't know okay I'm sorry," is what you babble out.  
  
"Prompto," Ignis exhales, and brings his weapon down to rest on his stomach. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I heard..." You swallow, though it doesn't do much with your desert dry throat. "I heard noises coming from over here, they freaked me out, what the fuck were you doing?"  
  
Ignis, perhaps surprisingly, snarls at you. "Does it matter?"  
  
"Um, you're dangerously close to waking everyone in the house up, and you're kind of scaring the shit out of me."  
  
He clucks his tongue as if you're the one misbehaving in the middle of the night, and wriggles out of your lap. The knife shimmers and disappears back into the Armiger, and he pulls himself into a kneeling position, this time without hurting himself.  
  
You stand, and flick on the light by the stove. In the full light of the room, the mess looks even bigger, revealing more of the story behind it.  
  
Ignis continues kneeling beside you as you turn off the burner. His breathing gets rough, and his voice thick, when he says, "I'm so sorry."  
  
"Hey," you attempt to echo the tone he uses when reassuring you, "it's okay."  
  
"It's not okay." His tone is reminiscent of pulling a knife out of a bloody wound. "Nothing is okay, Prompto. I can't bloody _see_."  
  
In a better situation, maybe you'd crack a joke about how _it's a little late for that_ , but you don't. You clear a path through the pans and dishes on the floor to crouch beside him.  
  
"Hey. Does your hand hurt where you touched the stove?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Can I touch it and give it a look over?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
It's not fine. You ghost your fingers over the ones on his injured hand, as if to ask permission again. He relents.  
  
"I could fix it," he says. "I could fix it if I knew where the hell everything was. I've burned myself many times, you know."  
  
"I bet." You look at the burn, and find it's not bad at all. The skin is bright red, and doesn't appear to be fading back into pale tones anytime soon, so it's probably only first degree. "Do you want a potion?"  
  
"No. Better not to waste curatives on this. There should be salve in the Armiger."  
  
You focus your thoughts until a metal tin with a purple label sits in your hand. The paste inside is smooth and vaguely yellow, with bits of lavender buds stuck in it. You use your finger to smear some across the injury, and even after you're done, hold his hand with both of yours.  
  
"Is this okay?" you murmur.  
  
"Fine."  
  
"I'm gonna try pulling you up now."  
  
"Fine."  
  
Fine seems to be his new favorite word.  
  
You lift Ignis to his feet, and walk him to a chair at the table. When you turn back to the stove, you figure it's time to start cleaning.  
  
Ignis sits in silence as you clean, until you dump the remains of the mug into the kitchen trash with a _shuffle, clink, crunch._  
  
"I've failed you," he states.  
  
You brush any remaining ceramic chips from the dustpan you're using into the trash with everything else. "No you haven't."  
  
"Yes." He bends his head low. "I've failed Noct, Gladio, you, and worst of all, myself."  
  
You return to the stove, sit the open oil bottle up, and set to work cleaning the spill. You listen.  
  
"I thought this was a good idea. I thought to myself—Ignis. One cannot lead by standing still. You must take the initiative, and rescue your charge. Instead, I made everything worse. I'm afraid I was too," he gives a self-deprecating chortle, "blind to see it."  
  
He runs a hand through his brown hair, silvery in the light. "Noctis and Gladio are gone, the latter could die any day now and I wouldn't know about it. I can't accomplish anything. I can't even make a pot of soup when I need it."  
  
You walk to the opposite counter, and rinse your oil stained rag in the sink. While there, you catch sight of tears leaking from his scarred eyes.  
  
The kitchen is mostly back in order, at this point. You notify yourself to take a deep breath, and leave the rag to go sit at his side.  
  
"I don't think you're a failure, Iggy."  
  
"Your opinion doesn't change the facts."  
  
"Who says it's a fact?"  
  
You think that if he had control over his one open eye, he'd roll it.  
  
"Look," you say, "if it's anyone's fault Noct...is...gone, it's mine. I was the bait."  
  
"Please. You were captured and violated for a week. That wasn't your fault. He wanted to help."  
  
You remember the dream, the things that happened to you, all the ways you've punished yourself for it in the past three years.  
  
Somehow, you choose to breathe through it. Ignis needs you right now.  
  
"Maybe it wasn't my fault." Your intrusive thoughts shout at you to _shut up,_ but saying those words out loud, to another person, grants you the power to ignore them. "It wasn't yours either, though. The only person at fault is Ardyn, okay?"  
  
"Motherfucker," Ignis breathes, and places his forehead in his non-injured hand.  
  
"Tell me about it." The nightmare flashes back into your mind, salt and pain and stomach acid. "Hey, do you want something to drink?"  
  
Ignis hesitates, and though he tries to hide it you see it in the lines of his forehead. "Water, I suppose."  
  
"Comin' right up."  
  
You pull a glass from the cupboard, fill it with the water from the sink, and set it on the table just in front of his waiting hand. Once he drinks about half, you say, "I think we should get you back to bed?"  
  
It comes out like a question, because you have no idea what you're doing. It's late, and your only role model when it comes to delivering comforting and grounding advice is currently the one having a breakdown.  
  
Ignis, however, nods.  
  
You take his non-injured hand, and guide him back through the hallway and into your bedroom. He sits on his bed, and shuffles towards the headboard while you run back to retrieve the rest of his water. You set it on his nightstand, and summon the salve to put next to it.  
  
You sit back on your own bed.  
  
"Are you going to be okay?"  
  
Ignis lies there.  
  
"I suppose we'll see."  
  
"That's better than nothing."  
  
You get up, and go to shut the door. As soon as you hear the click of the latch, you realize what you should say next.  
  
You hesitate, hand still warming the cold metal of the doorknob.  
  
"You know...when Noct gets back, I think he's going to be over the moon to see you."  
  
Ignis says nothing.  
  
"I'm sure that he's gonna...scoop you up the best as he can, you're kinda tall, and call you the best advisor he's ever had. He's not gonna worry about whether or not it was a good idea to burn your face off, he's just gonna put a sword through the fucker that made it so you had no choice."  
  
In his silence, you make it back to your bed, and pull the quilt up around your waist.  
  
Then: "I'm the _only_ advisor he's ever had."  
  
"Well," you sigh, "however Lucian government works."  
  
Ignis laughs, and through it you hear a slight sniffle.  
  
"Thank you, Prompto."  
  
"It's no problem." You roll over to face him, but he's already facing the wall, so you probably shouldn't disturb him.  
  
You roll onto your back, and close your eyes.  
  
Ardyn stands in front of you, hand on his cock.  
  
You open them again.  
  
Your intrusive thoughts slip out of the woodwork, but instead of telling you something awful, the words _maybe it wasn't my fault_ rattle in your skull.  
_  
Maybe I wasn't to blame after all._  
  
Still, you can't sleep like this.  
  
You shrug on the coat hanging on your headboard, pull on your boots, and head to the garage to get started on the day's to-do list.


	4. Year 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I have edited and stockpiled for now, so updates are gonna get bumpy from here on out. Rest assured, the series is still in progress and being worked on, and I have no intention of abandoning it...
> 
> Thanks for reading with me thus far and being patient, though. Hearing about your enjoyment and your thoughts means soooooo much to me. :DDDDD

When Aranea re-enters your life, she says it's for curatives.  
  
The things are hard to come by lately, considering the state of the world and the actual method of making potions only possible if you knew Noctis while he was still here. The Glaives can turn what little water they have into Elixirs, but it's risky with the limited supply. The sports drinks Noctis used were the best option, but they're not really around anymore.  
  
You still have a precious supply of the sports drinks-turned-curatives stashed in the Armiger, and she knows this, so it's not a surprise when she barges into Hammerhead with her crew and barters to take some back with her. It's not like anyone in the garage hunts but you, anyway.  
  
What does surprise you is when she keeps coming back.   
  
For the first few times, it's to top her supplies off. After a few months of the routine, when your personal store begins to dwindle, she almost seems to...forget.   
  
Sometimes, when coming back from a hunt, you'll see her dropship parked beside the property yet no sign of her anywhere.   
  
Sometimes she asks train to with you, saying, "You've got a lot to learn, shortcake."  
  
Sometimes she hangs around Takka's for drinks with her men after a successful mission

  
Very occasionally, if you happen to be out in the parking lot or staring out the window at the exact right time, you'll see a jet of red soaring up into the flat desert night, and shooting back down again with a distant _boom_.   
  
No matter what, she and the looming problem of curative supply remains. Before long, Ignis takes it upon himself to inventory what little you have left. The task lasts him a couple of hours, and in the end the kitchen table is covered in bottles of shimmering liquid.  
  
Ten Potions, three Hi-Potions, and a single Elixir. No Phoenix Down; you don't think you've had any since escaping Zegnautus.   
  
That's not much.   
  
"Well," Aranea says, once you call the meeting with her, Cindy, and Ignis, "that sucks."  
  
You roll your eyes. "Understatement, much?"  
  
You sit at the kitchen table, the bottles all clustered in the middle where everyone can investigate them.  
  
"You're the only one of us who's left this territory in recent years," Ignis says, slipping into problem solving mode, "do other, remaining outposts in Lucis sell the drinks we used to make the curatives?"  
  
Aranea leans back in her chair, tilting its front legs off the ground. She makes a _pffft_ sort of noise.  
  
"Not many. None out here in nowheresville, that's for sure. Meldacio has some, but they're just energy drinks, last I checked. Lestallum, definitely. The big guy's up there blessin' 'em. But if they're not running on fumes now, they will be soon."  
  
Ignis's hand curls into a fist at the passing mention of Gladio, the glove he wears being the only thing preventing him from driving his nails into the skin of his palm.  
  
"Alright..." You drum your fingers against your thigh, thinking. "We're just...we're sure there's nothing left? At all?"  
  
You look to each of your friends' faces. Aranea sits carelessly, her eyes closed. Ignis's fist is a bit looser now, but is otherwise tense. Cindy seems to be thinking as hard as you are.  
  
"They jus'...up and left? The manufacturers?" she asks.   
  
Aranea looks annoyed, but doesn't respond in as bitter a tone as you'd expect.  
  
"I wasn't there, Cin, how would I know?"   
  
"There's a strong chance they lasted at least a few months into the Night before one of two things happened." Ignis leans forward, and sets his cane to lean against the edge of the table. "They evacuated, or were overrun."  
  
"Either way, wouldn't there be product left?" Cindy asks.  
  
"It's possible."  
  
"If there was," you think out loud, "if there was, wouldn't there be, like, a central manufacturing location? Like the MT research facility, back in Niflheim."  
  
Struck by inspiration, you pick one of the glass bottles from the table in front of you. As the blue liquid sloshes about within the glass, you turn it sideways to read the white lettering printed across the side:   
  
_BALAMB:_ _From our garden, straight to your bottle.™  
_  
You twist it, past the logo, past the nutritional facts, until you find...  
  
"There!"  
  
You bend over to show Aranea.  
  
"Manufactured in Duscae, Lucis," she reads. "So, what, we search all over Duscae for a big, abandoned warehouse?"  
  
"Well at least it's gotta be near Lestallum, right?" You set the bottle back with the others. "I'm just glad it's not in Insomnia, that could be a problem."  
  
"So," Ignis steeples his fingers, "we gather a team, we find the manufacturing plant, we bring the drinks back, and one of us blesses them?"  
  
You read the room a little, looking between the two women present. "Sounds good to me."  
  
"Well," Aranea brings the front legs of her chair down, and lifts her feet off the table, "can't use my ship."  
  
"Wha-," you physically sag under the words, "really?"  
  
"Sorry, shortcake. She's not for rent. I won't be helping you either."  
  
"I—"  
  
You look to Cindy. "I gotta look after the garage."  
  
"Iggy?"  
  
Ignis pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, and it says everything you need to know.  
  
"I can't go alone," you say.  
  
"So," Aranea starts pacing. "Assemble a team. This is an outpost, isn't it? You're a Hunter, don't you have other friends?" She pauses, and arches an eyebrow at you.  
  
"It's, uh," you giggle nervously, "it's kind of hard..."  
  
"You kidding?"  
  
You feel for your wristband, all fuzzy and black. You scrape at the fabric with two fingers, just lightly.   
  
Aranea gives up her skeptical look for something like...pride?  
  
"For you, something like gathering a few Hunters together should be a breeze. Am I right?"  
  
She fixes you with a steely, determined look that you have no choice but to meet.  
  
"Yeah. Right."  
  
You can't bring yourself to stop playing with the wristband.  
  
  
******  
  
  
On a good day, Takka's is nearly empty. Less Hunters means less hunts, less to worry about. When you step into the diner with the intention of putting together a group to find the Balamb manufacturing facility, you can at least say there's more in there than you'd like.  
  
Though, in all truthfulness, it's not just because more people signifies more trouble with the daemons. You mostly just don't like being in crowded places, with the possibility of accidentally brushing against someone.  
  
You swallow and wave at Takka, who you only just noticed waved when you came in.  
  
All around are men and women, dressed in patchy brown garb, scrounging through crates of rations, talking to one another, polishing their weapons.   
  
You get fidgety, just thinking about approaching any one of them. Social interaction has never particularly been your forte, at least where the royal retinue weren't directly involved. That happens when you grow up as a cloned soldier, cut off from the world at large.  
  
Still, this is in everyone's best interest, you remind yourself. Dozens of injured Hunters and civilians, not to mention your own friends, aren't going to wait for you to get over the nausea building in your stomach to go talk to someone  
  
You scan the room, trying to ignore your own shallow breathing.  
  
Sitting at the bar, near where Takka wipes down the countertop with a rag, is a Hunter with dusty, sandy blonde hair. It's like yours, only a shade darker, and floppy like how you wore it before discovering hair gel.   
  
Almost like the Six trying to tell you to take a hint, there's an open stool next to him.  
  
You finally convince yourself to stop freaking out, or at least postpone it, and take the seat.  
  
"So..." you start once settled.   
  
Takka gives you a look, and you just wave him away.   
  
The man with dusty blonde hair taps his fingernails against an empty glass. Some kind of alcohol, maybe? He doesn't seem to want a refill.  
  
"I...haven't seen you around here before?" you try to say in the least awkward way possible.   
  
The man looks just slightly towards you, before turning in his seat.   
  
He gives you a scrutinizing expression. It takes everything you have not to strangle your right wrist in nervousness.  
  
"Aren't you the guy that does weapons in the garage?" he asks.  
  
Your mind goes completely blank, like a monitor display shutting off.   
  
It takes you a beat too long to reply, "Yes! Yup, that's me."  
  
"Oh," he turns back to the bar, "yeah, thought so. Friends of mine frequent you all the time. Hey, wait a sec..." he shakes a finger at you, "aren't you a Glaive?"  
  
_Keep talking,_ you think, _respond._  
  
"Yeah! Well, getting there. Being trained by The Immortal himself."  
  
The man laughs. "Lucky bastard."  
  
You honestly cannot tell if he means that in jest or seriousness. You should steer away from this topic of conversation.  
  
"So, uh, here's the thing...um..."

_Just say it!_

“I've got this mission that I need to go on, but I need, like, a group of people."  
  
"Huh. Sounds interesting," he taps his empty glass against the table, "what for, a hunt?"  
  
"Actually, we kinda need some of these sports drinks? To turn into potions."  
  
You call a potion into your hand from the Armiger, to show him.   
  
Minutes later, you have the first member of your search party.

With his help, you’re able to gather a solid group for the mission within the day. It's truly a weight off, to have someone else do most of the talking and convincing.   
  
You still play with the black wristband, even after cutting a deal with your other six party members.

The anxiety you feel is absolutely ridiculous. You’ve done hunts before. You’ve scavenged ruins before, back when Cor lived here last year. You just can't place what the problem could be.

Is it the new people, and group dynamic?

Is it leftover stress from forcing yourself to socialize?

Is it because, try as you might, you just aren't as human as you should be?

The jitteriness, the nauseating flips your stomach seems to be growing fond of, last even until the morning you have to leave on the trip. You only end up waking early because of it, though. With this much anxiety you're shocked it didn't culminate in a nightmare for the night before.   
  
You slip your boots on, your pants, your vest. You do your hair, fiddling with it for a good ten minutes more than needed out of nervousness.  
  
In the bathroom's large mirror, you take a long look at yourself.   
  
Gravity defying blonde hair. Wide indigo eyes. Scars on the bridge of your nose and the corner of your eye, where the skin crinkles; signs of worse times. A few freckles here and there, but without a sun they're not out in as strong a force as they could be.   
  
Prompto.   
  
You sigh, and head downstairs.   
  
For about an hour, you just work through weapon requests, willing this irrational anxiety to leave. It wanes as you tinker and fix to the point where it's but a minor edge, pushed to the back of your mind.  
  
Then someone calls your name, and you see Ignis heading down the stairs. He's left his cane, and is dressed merely in his sleep clothing. He must have just rolled out of bed.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Are you at your bench?"  
  
"Sure am, Iggy."  
  
He makes his way over to you.   
  
"I'm grateful you haven't left yet; I was afraid I’d missed your departure. I have something for you."  
  
You stand up, pulling off your work gloves.  
  
"What is—oh."  
  
In Ignis's hands is a smartphone, with the screen at the edge slightly cracked.  
  
You look back up to him.   
  
"This is for me?"  
  
"Of course," he says, in the tone he usually uses to comfort you. It's a balm for your jittery mind.  
  
You reach out to take it, but something makes you hesitate. You push past the feeling, and pick up the device.  
  
"There's no cell capabilities any more, of course, but as it has rudimentary Internet access, you can send me an instant message using the Cosmos app." Ignis tucks his hands behind his back, clasping them. "I have my phone on me at all times, and took the liberty of adding Cindy's, Cor's, and Aranea's contact information in as well. You may also find a handful of games on it."  
  
You press the power button at the top, and watch it boot up in the dim light of the garage.  
  
"I—"  
  
"It also has photo capabilities, pardon for interrupting, just thought you'd like to know."  
  
"No, it's fine, just...thank you, Iggy."  
  
"It's no problem. Simply promise me one thing."  
  
You look back up from the phone's home screen. "Yeah?"  
  
Ignis isn't even wearing his sunglasses. You watch every line and scar etched into his face crease in concern.  
  
"Please return in one piece."  
  
You're not sure you understand where the sudden sentiment is from; you've gone hunting solo plenty of times before this.   
  
Still.  
  
"Yeah, I promise. Definitely."  
  
"Good." He exhales, and presses a hand to his forehead. "I'll be heading back upstairs to get my coffee. Good luck."  
  
You look down, tapping into the phone application like you did in Altissia, so long ago now.  
  
"Hey, Ignis."  
  
He pauses, with one foot on the first step.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
You glance down at the contacts list, then up at him.  
  
"I know...you wish you could do stuff like this. And I know it's hard. Just...thanks for supporting me."  
  
You can't see his face, but you hear the slight smile in his voice when he says, "Anytime."  
  
After that, you have barely enough time to clean up your tools and half-finished project before meeting at Takka's. The other Hunters follow suit, and after a brief recount of the supplies and a rundown of the mission, your party is off in a truck you borrow from Cindy.  
  
The trip to Duscae is long, peppered with uncomfortable rests at Havens, and your discovery of a game called 'King's Knight' on your phone. That, at least, distracts you from the suffocatingly close quarters you share with everyone else in the group, and provides something to do when you stay up at night with panic eating away at you.

The facility, when you find it, isn’t actually hard to miss at all.

It’s down by a whole abandoned outpost, stretching as high into the sky as an apartment complex, and twice as wide. It’s all gray, with words that were once painted on its side chipping off and fading away.

You lead the group into the building with the sandy blonde man at your side. It’s a dark place, and you have to light flares to see the broader range of the area.

“We’re looking for sports drinks,” the man beside you shouts back to the rest of the party, “anything that the Glaives can bless with Crystal magic and use as potions, got that?”

Murmurs of understanding ripple through those behind you.

The facility at first, not aided at all by the dark, appears labyrinthine. It’s ungodly cold, and just like with the blizzard in Niflheim, you have to push yourself to keep moving forward.

It takes you the better half of a day—not to mention, three unfortunate interactions with goblins that lurk in the dark corners of the place—until you stumble upon a wide, open area.

You and the group stand at one end, and at the other lies a massive loading bay door.

As you all walk past to investigate, you find just what it is you need; pallets and pallets of the exact sports drinks that Noctis was partial to.

Even after years of being connected to it, you’re still not quite sure how the Armiger works, or how much it can hold; but when you try to absorb one or two of the pallets into it, it doesn’t protest.

Here, the team breaks apart; half of them stay with you, to go through the other nearby pallets and crates for miscellaneous useful supplies, and the other half go to open the loading bay door with a massive creaking noise, and a heavy _clunk_ as it opens up onto cracked asphalt.

The only problem is, the _clunk_ noise, and the slight rumble it creates across the floor doesn’t stop once the door does.  
  
It's like slow-motion, when the behemoth emerges from the shadowy part of the room your flares can’t reach; a mass of deep purple and the swirling black of the Scourge, eating away at it on the side. It reminds you of meeting Besithia, a memory you shove out of your mind's eye with the same elongated dizziness of your screaming, "Run!".  
  
Time returns to its proper speed as soon as the monster's paw hits the ground, causing a minor earthquake in the warehouse. The team has already started to run like you warned, having got what they need, but you're left behind, thrown to the floor with the aftershocks.   
  
The behemoth snarls and growls, and the both of you seem to be caught in a contest of sorts; which will happen first, your getting up, or him crushing you?   
  
Turns out, neither. Before his front legs can cage you in or turn you into paste on the ground, you have your Lion Heart in hand, and shoot just below the thing's eye. The injury causes it to whine and stumble, falling to the side a bit while you plant your boots firmly on the ground again.   
  
Now you kind of regret sending everyone out. You could use the help.  
  
The Scourge leaps from eating away at the opposite side of the behemoth's skull to the bullet wound, festering inside and flooding it with its dark regenerative power.   
  
The sight unsettles you, but you shoot it again, aim ringing truer this time. It lands in the creature's eye just above where you shot it previously.   
  
This helps.

  
Except when it rights itself faster this time, the Scourge is now seeping into the injured eyeball and clearly puppeteering its face in a very unnatural manner.   
  
You banish the gun to summon your auto-crossbow, and before you know it your makeshift arrows fly out of it and into the broad neck of the thing. It flinches back, its whines of pain kicking up a mighty rumble.  
  
It adapts to its new lack of depth perception quickly, and charges at you from where you stand halfway between the loading bay doors and the creature.  
  
In a hasty split-second decision, you attempt to slide under it, through its legs and to the side so you can have a better vantage point.   
  
It's a mistake.   
  
You hit one of the hooves as it's poised mid gallop. Pain explodes across your abdomen, sending black to swallow your vision and throwing you into a nearby pile of crates.  
  
The behemoth doesn't even notice, still charging ahead. It reaches the gigantic door before it realizes you're gone, but in the end, doesn't seem to care.  
  
You crawl off of the crate you eventually landed on, curling an arm around your waist and trying to keep your abdominal trauma at bay.  
  
Your gun's in your hand. You don't remember summoning it.  
  
The behemoth's behind points towards you as you take aim, even with blurred sight.   
  
You smirk, and it hurts with your cracked and bloody lips.   
  
"Oh, hi there, opening," you whisper, aiming straight for what you can see of its ridged spinal cord.   
  
You close your eyes as a howl of pain pierces the room. The Hunters take the opportunity to pour back in through the entrance of the warehouse, attacking the thing while it lies thoroughly vulnerable.  
  
Everything still hurts. Any little movement worsens the blurry dark framing what you can see. You manage to curl your back and bottom into the air, just enough so you can look down and check the state of the left arm curled around your stomach.   
  
Not too much blood. That's good. You feel like your chest just received the business end of a Firaga, though.   
  
"Prompto!" someone shouts, as you're angling up to a kneeling position. The hunter with sandy blonde hair approaches you, placing his hand on your shoulder.   
  
You struggle to let the unbidden touch go.

"M'fine. The Scourge. Is anyone affected?"

He turns half backwards, looking at the rest of the group.   
  
"I don't know. It's melting the behemoth away."  
  
You nod, and reach into the Armiger, finding the last of your blessed curatives, and lay all but one in front of your knees. The one remaining you manage to tilt back and chug half of through the pain, pouring the rest all over your middle.  
  
Your vision clears. Your hearing clears. Things altogether feel easier to focus on, and you can take a deep breath again with minimal pain.   
  
"—the fuck?" you manage to hear.  
  
The phrase comes from the direction of the man with sandy blonde hair.   
  
Without warning, he grabs tight hold of your right wrist and—  
  
Oh.  
  
The wristband is gone.   
  
The barcode tattoo stands bare on your wrist, framed by long healed scars. He grips it tighter, and you struggle to pull away.  
  
"Hey, man, get off—"  
  
"You're a monster," he snarls, then cries, "he's a _monster_ _!"_  
  
That gets the remaining Hunters' attention, and all of a sudden people are closing in. You're surrounded, wrist fully on display for them.  
  
"What does it mean?"  
  
"I heard that the Empire used them in their MT programs..."  
  
"So he's not a real person?"  
  
"Is he a sleeper?"  
  
" _Guys_ _!_ "  
  
You yank your wrist away. You pull it close to your chest, rubbing over the mark with your thumb. "We got the stuff, right? Can we please just go home?"  
  
A woman with blue hair puts a hand to her chin. "Can we trust it?"  
  
_It._ Oh gods—the pronoun makes your stomach clench.  
  
"It's an MT," the blonde spits, "what do you think?"  
  
"I'm—"   
  
You try to protest.  
  
You want to protest.   
  
But you stutter, and nothing comes out.  
  
"I'm...I'm not..."  
  
"We should probably take him back anyway," says a hunter half-covered in blood, "just to show the Crownsguard and the management of the outpost."  
  
The sandy-blonde man looks you up and down with more than disgust—hatred. If he had his way, you'd probably be left here to wait out any other daemons that may be lurking in the building.

  
"Fine," he decides.   
  
  
******  
  
  
They don't tie you up or anything, for the ride home. You sit in the back of the truck like you did coming here, though everyone gives you a wide berth.   
  
You've never been more anxious about having reasonable personal space in your life.   
  
When you get back to Hammerhead and they tell what few people pass as "authorities" in this world anymore, no one cares, because they already know.  
  
Cindy vehemently defends you. _That there reject MT is my friend!_

  
Ignis stands his ground. _He is not worthless, nor an abomination._

  
Aranea—here, yet again—shrugs the situation off. _What does it matter? You work with me all the time._

 _  
_ You hear that when the Hunters manage to contact Cor about one of his Glaives being a filthy Niff experiment _,_ he just hangs up.   


Despite these defenses, these affirmations your friends give you about your worth, you can't feel anything but shame and hatred. It's like the words pass right through you.

  
You stare at your bedroom ceiling for days, doing hardly anything but trace over the tattoo on your wrist.  
  
There's no point in covering it at all, now, except maybe for your own comfort. Like that matters.

 _You don't matter,_ your thoughts whisper.  
  
The days pass, sliding together, one after the other.   
  
You wander downstairs some mornings and sit down at your bench with the intention to work, not that there's much to do anymore. Nothing comes of it anyway: every time you lay your hands on your tools a wave of guilt washes over you.  
  
_Who do you think you are, pretending to be human?_  
  
When that doesn't work, you try going out back and running through drills, or shooting targets, but that doesn't work either. You feel stiff, out of it, disconnected from the rest of the world.  
  
You raise your gun up to take aim, and that accursed barcode stares back at you.   
  
_You are property._  
  
It's an insane idea to even consider the idea of walking to Takka's and looking for new bounties, as you'll just hear the whisperings from other Hunters clearer than you already do in the garage or training lot.   
  
There's just...nothing. Nothing to do. Nothing to feel.  
  
You shouldn't exist. You're an abomination, you know it.   
  
Why are you even keeping yourself alive, at this point?  
  
  
******  
  
  
You thumb through the images on your camera, curled up tightly in the covers of your bed.   
  
It's Six-knows o'clock. The door is ajar, from Ignis leaving to shower and practice making tea.  
  
You don't have the energy to close it.  
  
The room is distinctly chilly, sending slivers of ice into your nerve endings every time you shift in your blanket nest. You don't care enough to turn on the dinky space heater that's tucked away in Ignis's closet, or summon a fire spell into the palm of your hand.   
  
Your head lolls to the side, resting on your shoulder and giving you an uncomfortable crick in your neck.   
  
The photos aren't changing anything.  
  
Normally looking through the gallery of pictures is enough to inspire some emotion in you, whether it be regret, or longing, or bittersweet nostalgia. They're sometimes even known to give you panic attacks, at least in the case of the picture with the smudge of Ardyn in it.  
  
Even now, you navigate to that image, and feel...nothing.   
  
Well, that's not quite accurate.  
  
It's like some invisible creature gnaws at your chest, making the whole of it ache. It's like getting hit by that behemoth's leg all over again, only fuzzier; dreamlike.  
  
Nothing happens.  
  
You stare and stare at the blurry red and gray at the corner of the frame.   
  
_Mine. All mine._  
  
Ardyn's words are a soft echo, inside your head.   
  
You inch your left hand up the side of the camera, and drag your thumb across the silhouette. You exhale, shifting your gaze from the picture to your right wrist.  
  
_His._  
  
Someone taps at your door, the light force pushing it open a little wider.   
  
Cindy's there.  
  
"Can I come in?"  
  
You shrug, but she can't see it. You muster a soft, "Yeah," instead.  
  
Cindy doesn't enter the room fully, just pushing the door all the way open and leaning against the doorframe.  
  
"Iggy done good, this time 'round. Didn't even spill the water."  
  
You smile, but it's vacant.   
  
"I'm glad."  
  
She tilts her cap up, and folds her arms.   
  
"I'm actually here cause someone came to me askin' for a request. They want their sword repaired. Well, I reckon it was...never been good at identifin' the long 'n pointy."  
  
You tear your eyes away from the camera screen, and focus your sight on her.  
  
"Really?" That has a touch of genuine surprise in it.  
  
She unfolds her arms again. "Said life was too short and the daemons too dangerous to spend bullyin’ one of their own. The thing's downstairs, by your bench. Wanna take a gander?"  
  
The barcode looms large in your periphery.   
  
You set the camera momentarily on your leg, propping yourself up on one arm.  
  
"Someone wants me to fix a weapon for them?"  
  
"Sure do." She smirks, walking into the room and sitting on your bed.   
  
The camera slides off your leg as you move to accommodate her, falling onto the mattress with a gentle _thunk_. The display, previously in sleep mode, lights up again with the jostling.  
  
You look into the missing sun. Ardyn stands behind.   
  
You pick up the camera again. Somehow, you convince yourself to skip ahead.   
  
A few pictures down the line is a selfie of yourself and Noctis, standing in front of the miraculous ceiling of water in the Vesperpool's caverns. You're still in your MT armor, but you smile just slightly. Noctis smiles too, closed-mouth and humble, but soft and glowing nonetheless.  
  
You navigate back to the picture from Lestallum.

Cindy's smirk turns melancholy.  
  
"I know it ain't easy," she half-whispers, "but shouldn't you let the past die?"  
  
You open the options menu for the picture. For an instant, the words, _are you sure you want to delete this photo?,_ appear on the screen.   
  
You breathe.  
  
_Maybe it wasn't my fault.  
_  
"Yeah," you nod, selecting _yes_. “Good plan.”


	5. Year 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Once again, new chapters for this entry are every Friday, and after that, we'll see!
> 
> Thanks to invisibledeity for editing the first half of this chapter, and thanks for all the work he put into this project. <3

There’s nothing but blackness.

No sensation, no sound, no sight. Barely any thought, besides your noticing the black.

You wonder if you’re waking up. Sometimes coming out of a deep sleep feels like this; like being in a dark tunnel, waiting as all other parts of you come back to life.

You feel yourself involuntarily shift, and then, suddenly:

Hands.

You feel hands, big and cold and calloused, settling on your chest. You can feel a thumb skirting a nipple.

Then, there are hands _all over_   your body.  
  
Hands on your arms, holding them high above your head. Hands on your legs, spreading them wide apart.  
  
Hands on your torso, your face, your ass.  
  
It's overwhelming.  
  
You kick and you squirm against the unwanted touches, trying desperately to rid them of their hold on you.  
  
It doesn't work.  
  
A hand creeps its way up to your mouth, clamping over it tight, while another slides its way around your waist.

You can't move. You can't scream.

You can't do anything as your mind replays what it feels like to be invaded, _violated_ , again and again and again and again...  
  
A pair of hands rest themselves lightly on your shoulders.  
  
"Prompto," someone whispers, lightly accented. "Prompto."  
  
Prompto isn't your name.  
  
Is it?  
  
You attempt to shrug the hands on your shoulders away. Surprisingly, it works.  
  
"You need to wake up, Prompto," the voice says again. It sounds thin, light like gossamer; not quite real. It barely penetrates the suffocating black.  
  
"The hands," you hear yourself say.  
  
"I removed my hands," the distant voice replies.  
  
"They're still here. His hands..."  
  
"Ardyn's hands?"  
  
"Chancellor's hands..."  
  
"Prompto. I want you to open your eyes. Can you do that?"  
  
Somehow, when the name Prompto enters your brain this time you come to yourself, wrenching your eyes open.  
  
You're Prompto, not a number. You're a human being. You're twenty five years old, a hunter, a Glaive. When you survey the room, you should be in your bed in Hammerhead, with Ignis sleeping to your left.  
  
Lo and behold, you are. The only difference is Ignis, out of bed and kneeling beside you.  
  
_He was the one who was talking,_ you think. _Oh. That makes...sense.  
_  
You shift to sit against your pillows, and when you do, you feel another hand sliding its way up your thigh.  
  
You panic and scramble, kicking wildly, trying to get the offending touch away from you.  
  
"Prompto," Ignis says in his stern, motherly way, "Prompto."  
  
He holds up a fistful of your quilt.  
  
"It was the blanket moving. No one is touching you. Alright?"  
  
Cold, terrified, shivering up by your pillow, you see what he's referring to and nod. He drops the quilt in a heap on the floor.  
  
You look at him. His head is angled towards the quilt.  
  
"Can you take a deep breath?"  
  
You nod, forgetting he can't see it, and attempt to follow through with his request.  
  
You have a mnemonic, don't you?  
  
_In for five.  
  
Hold for five.  
  
Out for seven.  
_  
"Again."  
  
_In for five.  
  
Hold for five.  
  
Out for seven.  
_  
"One more."  
  
By the end of your third breath, you've obtained a glimmer of clarity.  
  
Ignis has taken a few steps closer, but done nothing else.  
  
"Do you still feel him?"  
  
A ghost of a hand skirts around the small of your back, and comes to rest on your hip. You shudder.  
  
"Yeah. A little."  
  
"Would you like a comforting touch?"  
  
"No. I don't—I don't want to be touched at all."  
  
"Very well. Would you like to come have some tea in the kitchen, with me?"  
  
You think that over. You don't see the harm in it, though you're not entirely sure you can stand without shaking to pieces right now.  
  
"Okay," you say, so diminutively it's a good thing that Ignis has honed his hearing skills.  
  
"Alright. Follow me, then."  
  
With some effort, you manage to stand and walk with Ignis out of the room.  
  
The kitchen is dark, filled with a gentle humming. You zero in on the noise, tethering your existence to it. Of your own accord, you take another deep breath.  
  
"Good," Ignis whispers. He turns on the light by the stove for you, far enough into the kitchen not to disturb the darkness of the hallway. It envelops him in a near-angelic glow as he fills the kettle and sets it on the flame. You sit down in a chair at the table, flinching again when you feel a hand trace your spinal cord.  
  
Except it's not a hand; it's the back of the chair.  
  
You tune back into the white noise of the kitchen appliances, allowing it to ground you. You're here, in Hammerhead, far, far away from Ardyn.  
  
He's not touching you anymore. You're protected.  
  
You take yet another deep breath, but it's far shakier than the others.  
  
"Are you alright?" Ignis asks, pausing his work with the two cups in front of him.  
  
"What time is it?" you deflect.  
  
"I'm afraid my phone is not on my person, but before I woke you, it had just turned five."  
  
Not that bad, then. You usually get up in about an hour anyway.  
  
Ignis sits across from you.  
  
"Are you alright?" he repeats, surprisingly judgement-free.  
  
You adjust, rubbing your back against the chair. You want to get used to the feeling of it being there, instead of panicking every time you brush against it.  
  
"I don't know. No," you finally respond.  
  
"Fair enough." Ignis smiles, warm and full of compassion. His hands sit on the table, laid out to you like an offering.  
  
It really is kind of him, how he's always willing to do this for you. How often he ends up waking you from your night terrors, calming you down, offering you some time to take your mind off it and remind you of your coping mechanisms. It takes you right back to when Noctis was still around, and how he would walk and talk with you late into the nights on the train, or how he stayed at your side during the little downtime you had at Zegnautus. 

Damn it all. It always comes back to that cursed week in captivity, doesn't it? Whether you're conscious or not.  
  
_Ever at your side_ , you had told him, parroting the words in some book you had stolen from the records library years ago.  
  
Why did your inspiration, one of your closest friends, have to go somewhere you couldn't follow?  
  
The kettle whistles from across the kitchen, and Ignis retracts his hands, rising to finish preparing the tea.  
  
You try to breathe deep again, but get distracted halfway through.  
  
You think about the hands from your nightmare, and how if you could replace your memories of Ardyn's touch with anyone's, you would choose Noctis’s.  
  
Ignis returns to the table with two teacups and saucers, a silver ball of herbs in each staining the water golden.  
  
"May I ask a request of you?" he asks, once settled again.  
  
You look into your tea. "Sure."  
  
"Would you mind trying a bit of the tea I made this morning?"  
  
You look to his instead, as he lifts it off the saucer.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's a soothing blend I've concocted. I believe it may aid with the residual fear from your nightmare."  
  
Your nerves are jittery, and you’ve never done this before, but it can't hurt to try, can it? Tea’s just boiled leaf water.  
  
Ignis wouldn't hurt you. You at least trust that.  
  
The teacup is hot to the touch when you lift it up, but you find the least painful location to hold it from and lift the edge to your lips.  
  
A bitter, nutty taste spills into your mouth, sloshing around and warming it to the point of pain. Once you swallow the warmth spreads from your mouth and throughout your body, to wherever the tea travels.  
  
You think you understand why Ignis figured this would help. He sips from his own teacup, relaxing a bit into his chair.  
  
You set the cup back down on the saucer. "That's...nice. Thank you."  
  
"It's no problem. Thank you for indulging me in my new recipe."  
  
Nodding, you find yourself picking up the teacup again.  
  
_You don't deserve any of this,_ your brain says.  
  
_So what,_ you counter.  
  
_You shouldn't get tea. You shouldn't get to borrow Noctis's friends, you whore.  
_  
Externally, you sigh.  
  
_I'm not a whore anymore.  
_  
_But you'll lose all of this once he gets back. He doesn't even like you, anyway.  
_  
"Something on your mind?" Ignis asks after a long sip. His interruption, thank the gods, pauses the barrage of intrusive thoughts.  
  
"Lots of things, I guess."  
  
"Relating to your nightmare?"  
  
"It's kinda complicated. It's just..."  
  
You start to wonder if you should say anything more, then find yourself doing so anyway.  
  
"I miss Noctis."  
  
Ignis nods solemnly. "As do I, Prompto."  
  
"I think I loved him."  
  
When the rational side of your brain catches up with your mouth, your eyes go wide and you slam your hand to your face.  
  
Ignis mulls that over. "Well, I'm afraid that's where we stop relating."  
  
"I'm so sorry, I don't know where that came from!" Your cheeks get hot, and you hear a faint buzzing in your ears.  
  
"It's quite alright. He loved you too, you know."  
  
You lean your head into your free hand.  
  
"Yeah...in a brotherly way, right?"  
  
Ignis sets his teacup down completely. "Perhaps, but that wasn't all. He quite prefers men over ladies."  
  
You meet his scars.  
  
"You're kidding."  
  
"Not at all. He never directly said it, but it was rather obvious to me how he felt about you."  
  
You say nothing for several seconds before huffing out a slight laugh. You drink more of your tea; it's cooler now, but still as centering and warm as it was before.  
  
"Wait," you say after swallowing, "but that doesn't make sense."  
  
Ignis seems genuinely mystified. "And why is that?"  
  
"He didn't try to touch me. Not once."  
  
"You requested he not, correct?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"Why should he defy that request?"  
  
Your cheeks start heating up again.  
  
"I...well...love, _romantic_ love, comes with sex. And he didn't...he didn't try to do that."  
  
_It's because he didn't actually love you,_ your thoughts reply in advance.  
  
Ignis considers this. He drinks his remaining tea, and pushes his dishes to the center of the table.  
  
"Not always."  
  
There was a time during your earliest training phases at the facility, where you had been tasked to lift barbell weights. You had ended up dropping the thing on your chest, breaking a rib and almost suffocating before a trainer came and lifted it off you.  
  
That lack of pressure, the relief of pulling the weight off, is nothing compared to how you feel when you hear those words.  
  
"Besides," he continues, "Noctis doesn't force himself on people. I don't know as that he would ever have the care to. Furthermore, I doubt he would have tried anything, even if you did want it. We all lived together on the train for a total of three weeks, and he tends not to dive directly into things of that nature."  
  
"So...wait," you clasp your hands around your teacup, "so I guess what you're saying is that you don't need sex in a relationship right away?"  
  
"You don't need it at all in one, really."  
  
You gulp. This changes everything.  
  
The very inkling of a possibility that you could pursue something with Noctis once he returns, and especially without sexual contact, is like a flare lighting in your mind. For just a moment, all darkness, all toxic thoughts and terrible patterns are gone.  
  
There's just sheer, bright light, like Dawn itself unfolding within you.  
  
"Wow," you exhale.  
  
"Indeed." Ignis smiles, content. "I have no idea if he'll still be of that mind when he returns. Whether he is or isn't, however, I'm certain that Noctis will still continue to respect your boundaries and treat you well."  
  
"I hope so."  
  
"I _know_ so."  
  
The light in your mind continues to rise, filling every nook and cranny of remaining darkness.  
  
"Because...I deserve it," you say, as if teaching it to yourself. "I...deserve good things."  
  
"You do," Ignis says in complete agreement.  
  
In that moment, you feel untouchable.  
  


  
******  


  
Ignis and yourself, after the early morning tea, get dressed and walk downstairs at six. He still has a bemused smile on his face because of your reaction to the discussion, which stays on even as you head outside to talk up Takka at the diner.  
  
You enter the establishment, giving a wave to the man. Some of the nearby Hunters roll their eyes, or start to whisper when they notice your presence, but you let it go. It’s anxiety-inducing, but you know by now that there’s no point in letting it ruin the day completely.

You make a beeline for the bar with Ignis on your tail, when someone yells, "Hey, Iggy!" across the restaurant. The voice is familiar.  
  
"Was that Gladio?" Ignis demands, stepping ahead of you.  
  
When you follow the voice to its source, you find none other than Gladiolus Amicitia, sitting in a booth to the right.  
  
Your mouth goes dry. This reunion won't be pretty.  
  
"Uh. Yeah. He's sitting right over there, do you want me to—"  
  
Ignis pushes past you, using his cane to detect any obstacles and squeezing through boxes of supplies to get to Gladio. He gets pretty damn close, reaching the edge of his table.  
  
"Hey, Ignis," Gladio says, feigning normalcy, "How've ya been? Made any progress with—"  
  
A slap interrupts the background chatter of the diner, and everything goes silent. You watch, seemingly in slow motion, as Gladio lifts a hand to his darkening cheek and Ignis stands above him, nearly out of breath.  
  
"I was worried _sick_ ," he grits out, all cold rage. “What could you _possibly_ have been thinking, not contacting us for five years?”

Gladio catches your eye for the briefest of moments, then returns to Ignis.  
  
The diner gradually lapses back into its usual state of organized chaos and background noise after the first phase of the outburst, and you're left only catching bits and pieces of what the two are discussing. You would rather not get involved in the argument, so you resume your original path towards Takka, and talk to him.  
  
"Someone's upset," he says, wearing a wry smile.  
  
"Yeah, clearly."  
  
"Guy's been sitting over there all morning, actually. Since about three a.m., when he came in. Slept in that very booth."  
  
"Ah, gods. I just hope Iggy doesn't whoop him too hard." You point towards the inside of the bar, where Takka keeps his hunt info. "Got anything new?"  
  
"You know,” he leans onto the counter, “your little friend over there took on a whole bunch of requests when he got here. The real troublemakers, too. Think he's planning on going after them later today. Why don't you go double check to see if he's still in good enough shape to take them on?"  
  
"Will do." You give a little salute, and walk around the junk in the middle of the restaurant to Gladio's booth.  
  
Ignis is now sitting across from him, cane leaning against his thighs, and hands clasped in his lap. It's a look that means all business; a far cry from how open and relaxed he was for tea.  
  
As you get closer, you hear clearer and clearer snatches of their conversation.

“—but come on. You knew I was okay."  
  
"I'd rather hear it straight from the source. News travels slower than you'd expect, during the apocalypse."  
  
"Did you hear about Iris?"  
  
"We're not here to talk about Iris."  
  
You reach the table, giving Gladio yet another excuse to squirm out of the discussion. He looks you up and down, head to toe.  
  
"What is it?" Ignis asks, and snaps his fingers as close to Gladio's face as he can manage. "Gladio. _Gladio._ "  
  
He finishes drinking you in and goes back to talking to Ignis like you're still halfway across the room.  
  
"When did he become a Glaive?"  
  
"When Cor decided to begin training him as such." Ignis answers matter-of-fact; mechanical.  
  
"What happened to putting him on a battlefield being 'counter-productive'? Did his PTSD just magically clear up?"  
  
"Hey," you start, but Ignis beats you to the punch.  
  
"The details of his mental state are not something you are obligated to know, Gladio, and damn it all to hell, you are still refusing to _talk to me._ "  
  
"Hey!" you shout.  
  
Gladio looks to you, and Ignis tilts his ear in your direction.  
  
"I'm right here! Don't talk about me like I'm some..."  
  
_Object,_ you were going to say, but even thinking the word sends you back to your nightmare from this morning.  
  
A flash of a hand brushes against your thigh, and you screw your eyes shut against it.  
  
"Kid's got a point," you hear Gladio say, and Ignis moans in frustration.  
  
Ignis's voice enters your mind, reminding you to take a deep breath. You refuse to let something as small as this pull you under.  
  
"Just, like," you glare at Gladio, "I exist! Maybe include me in the conversations you have about me?" You fold your arms. "I became a Glaive because I want to protect Noct when he comes back, and prove to myself how far I've come. Okay? Okay. And just what have _you_ been up to for the past five years, big guy?"  
  
Gladio shuts up, and rubs his eyes.  
  
"Can we at least go somewhere else?"  
  
"Where would you recommend?" Ignis tries on his snarkiest tone.  
  
"Either of you two got a place?"  
  
  
******  
  
  
The kitchen seems infinitely smaller with Gladio in it. He sits in the chair usually reserved for Aranea when she's over, and with the way he dwarfs the cheap wood you're terrified it's going to break.  
  
Ignis doesn't offer him a drink, and neither do you. You figure he probably had something at the diner; Ignis seems motivated by bitterness.  
  
"So. I left." Gladio folds his arms. "Went to Lestallum. Trained Iris. Worked with Aranea and Cor, sometimes. Mostly just did my own thing, worked on getting stronger." His eyes find the corner of the fridge, and stay there. "Really isn't much to tell. It was just me and the daemons, or me and Iris."  
  
Ignis _hmphs_. "If you haven't changed at all, why are you here?"  
  
"Says the guy who wanted me back?"  
  
"I wanted you back after you had realized that you were being an asshole."  
  
"Hm. Guess my mind's changed about some things," you know he's referring to you without him even flicking his eyes your way, "but I'm mostly here because I've matured. I'm a better fighter, and a better teacher, now that I've had a protégé."  
  
"And?"  
  
Ignis's head is tilted down, brow furrowed. You think that even if he had his sight he wouldn't be looking directly at Gladio anyway.  
  
"And I think I could whip you back into shape."  
  
Ignis's head lifts gradually, as he processes what was just said.  
  
"Are you…offering to teach me to fight again?”  
  
He says the words like they're delicate things, prone to break at any moment.  
  
“It wouldn’t be easy on either of us, but I think I can make it work."  
  
Ignis opens his mouth to speak. Then closes it again. Then opens it. It takes a few more iterations of this process before he composes himself.  
  
"I'm not sure how to react," he says, "much less decide on what to say to the man who has given me nothing but grief for the past five years, and now offers me this opportunity."  
  
"Maybe a 'thank you?'" Gladio bares his teeth when he smiles. "What do you think, Glaive-in-training?" he asks you. "Think he should go for it?"  
  
You shrug. "It's not my choice, but yeah, I think you should, Iggy."  
  
Ignis rests a finger to his chin.  
  
"When would we start?"  
  
Gladio unfolds his arms, leaning towards the center of the table. His next words betray a tenderness you aren't expecting.  
  
"Whenever you're ready."  
  
It's strange how, in this moment, Gladiolus doesn't intimidate or frighten you as he normally does. The way he looks at Ignis makes your chest ache and slightly lessens the fear you've always felt towards him, because in that moment, he looks like Noctis.  
  
The way Noctis always looked at you.  
  
Maybe it's the residual baggage from your talk with Ignis coloring the scene, but for the first time since you met him you think you see Gladio experiencing some kind of _love_.  
  
Then you study Ignis; still shocked at the suggestion, but now attempting to cover up the emotion written across his face. He's surprised, pleasantly so, but it's obvious he doesn't share what Gladio is offering, hidden behind his words.  
  
You think you understand more about the two of them now than you ever have before.  
  
It takes Ignis time to say something after Gladio's last comment.  
  
When he does, it's, "Thank you, then.”


	6. Year 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am *so* done looking at this one. >.>
> 
> As always, thanks everyone for the wonderful comments you leave!!!! They really make my week!!!! <3

The wall of the garage your workbench leans up against directly faces the sandy training lot out back. It's a thin wall, mostly metal, and as you work, you can hear every altercation that goes on out there.  
  
"C'mon. Again."  
  
"Dammit, Gladio."  
  
"You'll get the hang of it—there you go."  
  
It's not something you think of as a problem. At least, not anymore. No one used to use that sparring area besides yourself, so at first the unfamiliar, unexpected noise was a distraction.  
  
Now it kind of makes you happy.  
  
Ignis is struggling—of course, he would be—but also catching up to where he left off by leaps and bounds. You're not going to pretend to know anything about dual wielding daggers, or the gymnastics he used to be so fond of, but on the rare occasion you get to watch you can tell he looks better.  
  
Their training sessions sound better, too.  
  
"There you go; use your hearing."  
  
"I _am_ using my hearing."  
  
"Where am I?"  
  
_Clank_.  
  
"There."  
  
Since he got back, almost a year ago now, Gladio lives in the Caravan across the parking lot. As far as you know he's paying for the place, but that doesn't make Hunters that need somewhere to stay any less upset about it. Cindy says she's considering selling the thing to him, if he doesn't find an actual home.  
  
You haven't decided what to think about that.  
  
"Daemons aren't going to stop and wait for you. This isn't King's Knight."  
  
"I am well fucking aware of that!"  
  
"So get moving."  
  
There's a grunt of exertion, and a _clang_.  
  
"Better."  
  
Metal slides across metal, sharp and high pitched.  
  
The sounds of these daily sessions have become imprinted in your brain, folding neatly into the routine of your life.  
  
The chatter and noise fades to the background, occupying your subconscious as you tinker in the garage. Unwanted thoughts lessen even more than they normally do when you keep your hands occupied.  
  
On your workbench today is a katana from a visiting Hunter, who would have stayed at the Caravan if Gladio hadn't claimed it. As such, you have a few days until they get back and reclaim their new weapon, modified with the Sky Gemstone they brought with it. Hell if you know how these gems work, but apparently they work pretty damn well, because you're backed up on modding requests.  
  
Another grunt of exertion on Gladio's end, turning into a yell.  
  
"Nice one!" he cries, and you can hear the smile in his voice.  
  
"I try my hardest," Ignis pants.  
  
"Think that's probably good for today."  
  
"Wonderful. Mind if I stay out, run through a few more drills?"  
  
And there Gladio is now, coming into the garage from the back door.  
  
"'Course," he calls back outside, "be careful."  
  
He pauses for a moment after shutting the door and leans against the frame, his broad shoulders heaving.  
  
Usually after training it's upstairs to take a shower, then back down again to relax before whenever his next hunt may be. Today, however, the routine changes slightly; maybe his schedule is more packed than usual, because he gets to relaxing right away.  
  
Something flashes out of the corner of your eye, and you glimpse him with a book and his camp chair. As soon as the novel is in his hand he buries his nose in it, and with the other hand he deftly folds open his chair, plopping it to the side of the stairs.  
  
Unlike the sparring with Ignis, this routine is far less soothing.

Gladio's presence tends to set off your hypervigilance. On more than one occasion you've found yourself focusing less on your work and more on the total number of viable exits in the room, even when he's clearly just reading.  
  
Maybe it's because he's huge, bulky and tall, and could probably overpower you if he really tried.  
  
Maybe it's because he left Ignis alone, stressed and worried for years.  
  
Maybe it's because you remember how little he cared for your boundaries back when Noct was still around.  
  
Plus, Gladio can sit _for hours_ reading—something you didn't know about him until he re-entered your life—in _your_ space, and that doesn't help either.  
  
So you work at your workbench, trying desperately to ignore him. When the force of trying to block him out only worsens your concentration, you give up and flat out stare at the man.  
  
His left elbow sits on the canvas of his chair, his fist holding up his cheek. His eyes are half-lidded, as if drowsy with contentedness.

You squint a little to see the book’s title, and feel your eyes go wide when you recognize it.  
  
Because there, in a swooping, looping, golden font, are the words _SAFE HAVEN.  
_  
What follows feels like two realities merging at once. On some level, you're aware of the smell of machinery and oil, the familiar weight of tools in your hands. On another, you can feel your legs cramping as you kneel on the MT Research Facility’s cool metal floors, gripping the book tight, like someone's liable to come in and take it from you at any second. It's not the sort of flashback you’re used to, but it's close.  
  
Then you're back in the present, where Gladio has met your staring head on.  
  
"What," he says in a flat tone, "got something on my face?"  
  
You shake your head, and blink a few times, trying to snap yourself back to attention.  
  
"Ah...no. Sorry, big guy, I just...recognized the book you had there."  
  
He sticks a finger in the place he left off and turns it around to look at the cover. He makes a _hmph_ noise, then, "Didn't know you were into cheap romance novels."  
  
"I-I mean," you set a tool down on your workbench, and fiddle with the Sky Gemstone you're supposed to augment the katana with. "I mean, I used to be, a while back. Not really anymore. They were helpful, at the time."  
  
Gladio returns his attention to the book, trying to find the paragraph he left off on. "I'm surprised _he_ let you."  
  
"Yeah... _he_ , uh...he didn't."  
  
You take a deep breath. Don't want to be pulled into those memories, certainly.  
  
Gladio looks up again, squinting in your direction. His shoulders rise in what looks like it's going to be a heavy sigh, but then he doesn't do anything with it.  
  
"C'mere." He pulls a bookmark out of his pants pocket, sticks it in his place, and sets the book aside.  
  
"What? No."  
  
"Please," he says, and by the gods, it sounds tired.  
  
Gingerly, you walk over. You double check all of the unblocked exits in the room, in case this goes how your brain is expecting. Luckily, he sits right by the stairs, so you can make a break for those if you need to.  
  
Gladio has switched from supporting his cheek with his fist to clasping his hands in his lap, over the cover of the book.  
  
"Look, Prompto, it's been a while, but I owe you an apology."  
  
You blink at him, and hold your arm at the elbow.  
  
"Um...for what?"  
  
"Honestly? Everything."  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"I was an asshole. We all kinda were back then, but making fun of you for not wanting to sleep with us on the train was a dick move. I didn't know the circumstances, but that's not a great excuse. Just shouldn't have said some of the things I did in the first place."  
  
"Um."  
  
"And this whole," this time he actually does heave a sigh, “six years of darkness thing. Not to mention what I said when we got back to Lucis. I wasn’t just wrong, I was treating you like you weren’t even human.”

He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.  
  
"I'm not perfect,” he continues as you take a seat on the bottom stair. "Mentoring Iris really taught me that. I deal with grief in pretty shitty ways, too. I'm sorry."  
  
You stare at him for a second before looking to your hands.  
  
"It's okay. I mean, I'm just glad you're training Ignis and not me.” You look up, giving a sheepish little laugh. “Not gonna lie, you kinda terrify me sometimes."  
  
His brown eyes go stormy, brow creasing overhead.  
  
"Guess I shouldn't be surprised by that."  
  
He frowns, and for a moment you're actually scared that he might tear up.  
  
"But, like," you fumble for words to break the awkward silence, "thanks for the apology? And honestly, Ignis screwed up, too. I think a big part of the reason he didn't want me hunting in the first place was so he wouldn't feel bad he couldn’t either.”

He nods. "Iggy's had a rough few years. Sounds like you have, too."  
  
"Hah. More like a rough life."  
  
“It’s changing though, yeah? Getting easier?”  
  
You're taken aback by the question, and look down to your uncovered wrist.

“I..guess? It is.”

He smiles in that cocky, corner of the mouth way, and settles back down with his book.

“Good to hear.”

 

*****

 

Is it, though?  
  
Sure, you ended up telling Gladio that things were getting better, but you have no way of truly knowing that when things like _this_ still happen.  
  
That night, you kneel in the hallway outside your room, one arm curled across your waist and the other over your mouth as you sob into it. You can't seem to stop crying, no matter how hard you try. At least you managed to get out here and have your breakdown without waking anyone up.  
  
You fucking _hate_ this. You hate the nightmares, you hate the panic attacks and meltdowns they cause. You hate still _feeling_ him, you hate having all this muck, this _filth_ , living in your brain.  
  
With a quaking hand, you press your fingers to your neck and find the erratic pulse there.  
  
_Still beating. Still alive._  
  
Nearby the pulse point, where your shoulder meets your neck, is a thick line of raised skin. You drag your fingers toward it, tracing it as far down the back of your shoulder blade as you can reach.  
  
In another flash of memory, you can feel the way Ardyn’s knife flitted down your back, and the way you went hoarse as you screamed in pain.

But it's not real anymore. All that's there is new skin, stuff that he never got to break again.  
  
It's awful that his cruelty still lurks in your head. It's the worst sensation you think you'll ever experience, the way it shadows your every living moment. No matter how many pictures you delete off your camera, or how many positive affirmations you counteract your intrusive thoughts with, you don't think you'll ever fully be without it.  
  
But—but he's _physically_ gone. He's physically gone, and your body has begun to rewrite itself, growing over the marks he made on you.  
  
Your fingers slide across the scar, up and down, up and down.  
  
You will never be the same. You will never have been untouched.  
  
But you're _you_. And you are changing, and it hurts so damned _much_ sometimes, and no matter what, he lingers.  
  
In the wake of your midnight breakdown, as the tears roll off your cheeks and your breathing begins to steady, all you can think is that _you are Prompto_.  
  
You _have_ changed, because you are growing into something different than what he wanted you to be. You are becoming new entirely; you’re a traitor, a Glaive, an amateur photographer.

Someone human. Someone kind.  
  
Gladio was right, you guess, but you don't think it was in quite the way he intended.  
  
You close your eyes, and bring your hand back down to your lap.  
  
_In for five._  
  
_Hold for five._  
  
_Out for seven._  
  
_In for five._  
  
_Hold for five._  
  
_Out for seven._  
  
_In..._


	7. Year 7

The Duscaen Arches glow, in the midst of the night. Part of it is due to the Starshells you fired into the air, in order to get enough lighting to take a decent picture of them, and part of it is due to your own hyperactive imagination.  
  
You're giddy as you look through the viewfinder on your camera, at the paragons of majesty that arc through the sky in front of you. You back up a little bit, boots sliding just slightly on the muddy ground, trying to capture the way the three different rock formations criss-cross through the sky without sacrificing the lighting. Having found a suitable angle, you press the shutter button and—  
  
_Click!  
_  
You take a few more pictures in rapid succession, determined to capture this moment with as much skill as you can muster.   
  
Afterwards you pull the camera down from your face, and take in the sight of the Arches with nothing but your simple, human eyes.   
  
You have to go and make yourself sad by thinking this would be a killer place to photograph the sunset, but you refuse to let it ruin the moment completely. The chilly night air—something you've long grown accustomed to—fills your lungs, another solid bit of proof that this is all real. You are actually standing here, taking in this sight.   
  
It's not a photo in a dusty, disused book. It's not a figment of your imagination, a fantasy to help you get to sleep.  
  
These are the actual Duscaen Arches, and here you are, capturing them for yourself.   
  
It's a liberating feeling.   
  
The Starshells are waning fast, so you change position and attempt to get a shot of how the formations arc towards the ground, far in the distance. You _could_ fire more of the specially designed bullets into the air, get more photos—you came prepared—but you're all too aware of daemons on the prowl, and just how dangerous they've become of late. You'd rather not waste any more time here than needed.  
  
With that, your camera is put away and your Lion Heart summoned in its place. You pull out your phone, to double check the directions to Cauthess Rest Area as you walk back the way you came and onto the highway.   
  
Ugh. Reading the word—Cauthess—makes your stomach hurt. It shouldn't; it's part of the geography of Lucis, and one of the only remaining outposts left in this dark world.  
  
You shouldn't still think of him when you see it. But you do. Gods, you do.   
  
But still, like the sunset thought, you don't want to let this ruin your trip. You're incredibly grateful for the tip Aranea gave you about the especially violent daemons in this region, and the opportunity it gave you to accomplish something you've always dreamed of doing.   
  
Life lately is—okay, you'd say. Not the least bit perfect; Six know such an ideal is impossible to reach, especially for someone like you. You're here, you're surviving, you're carrying on somehow, and that's all you can ask.   
  
On the really good days, you might even say you're close to that foreign concept of happiness; days like today, for example.  
  
You swallow down your irrational fear about the name of the outpost, and make haste towards it.   
  
The Arches hang directly over the diner there like a canopy of rock. With the artificial lighting in the rest area, you get a few more decent pictures of the way they bend gracefully over the remains of the town.   
  
At the Crow's Nest a little ways in, you find a seat at the bar and slap down the proof of the hunts you went on earlier.    
  
The proprietor looks from your proof, to you, and back again. He sweeps it off the counter and into his hand.   
  
"Looks like you were busy, kid."  
  
"Well," you scratch behind your ear, "I kinda needed to clear out the area. Wanted to get some good shots of the Arches, y'know?"  
  
He shakes his head. "Just hope you got what you came here for. You wanted food and shelter in exchange?”  
  
Your stomach rumbles as if in response; you've really come to rely on food in recent years, to the point where you need it like any other human, now.  
  
"Yeah, please, thanks."  
  
He turns to the kitchen equipment behind him. It all must have been used at some point before the dark, but surely isn't anymore. Most outposts only have cheap rations now, and what little can be thrown in a pan and heated up in a cinch.  
  
Still, after less than ten minutes, you're handed a small plate of powdered scrambled eggs and a cupful of warmed beans. It's not much—certainly nothing as good as what Iggy has been pulling together lately—but it's enough to remove the chill in your bones and keep your strength up.  
  
If only there was tea around here. Ah, well.   
  
You turn in your dishes when finished, and the proprietor hands you a key.   
  
"What's this for?" you ask, eyeing the thing.  
  
"Caravan. You'll be in the one just outside."  
  
Caravan.   
  
Oh, fuck.   
  
"Um, is it possible there's anywhere else to stay?"  
  
He gives you a look like you're crazy to ask.  
  
"I could mark the closest Havens on your map, if you got a tent."  
  
Well, you do, but you'll admit the exact process of setting it up still mystifies you a bit.  
  
"That's really it?" you double-check.  
  
The proprietor looks you dead in the eyes. "That's really it."

Then he picks up a nearby glass and starts to wipe it out with a rag, effectively ending the conversation.  
  
You exhale, and study the dark copper color of the key in your hand. On one end dangles a plastic keychain, clear, cracked at the edge. Inside it reads CAUTHESS, in handwritten black letters.  
  
Eventually, you convince yourself to leave the diner, and head over to the trailer you'll be staying in.   
  
The model and shape is eerily familiar. You try not to focus too hard on the two other times you've slept in caravans, the last being seven years ago when Night first fell. That had _not_ been a fun week.  
  
Beyond that...  
  
You eye the slot where one, under more ideal circumstances, slides in the Gil to pay for their stay. Through the same hyperactive imagination that aided you in getting shots of the Arches, you can almost see a big, rough hand shoving in coins.   
  
The same one that pulled you in after it, and held your arms above your head as its owner pounded you into the flimsy full-sized bed within.  
  
You cringe.   
  
_Focus on the lock.  
_  
You scramble to unlock the door, and get inside before you can convince yourself that sleeping on cold Haven stone isn't such a bad idea after all.  
  
The interior of the caravan doesn't do much to help the memories, either. The door clicks shut behind you, and the sound sends a chill down your spine.

Right away, you set to work busying yourself; something to do is better than standing still and reliving. You flick on the lights to the kitchenette, and pull open the cabinet across from the sink to find a space heater. Once that's plugged in and going and you've crouched over it for several minutes attempting to get warm, you dither in front of the door leading back into the bedroom.   
  
This caravan has a different layout than the one in Hammerhead. The one back there doesn't bother with all the cupboard space and the mini-couch this one has across from the kitchenette, instead containing two bunkbeds, plus one full sized bed at the back.   
  
Here, there's no choice but the large bed. The bed that could, in theory, hold two people.  
  
Your hand finds the knob of the bedroom door, lingering there.   
  
It feels like if you go inside, Ardyn will be there, naked and beckoning you to come forward. Thing is, he might be. The thought's never left you that he's still alive somewhere, awaiting Noctis's return as you do. You've seen his ability to warp people, perceptions, even reality itself to his will. There's a chance...  
  
You force the door open as fast as you can.   
  
It swings inside, revealing a dark caravan bedroom, and nothing more.   
  
Without even noticing, you find you've summoned your gun. You moan at yourself, at how freaked out you are over a beat up old motor home, and disappear it back into your inventory.  
  
Once you turn the lights in the room on, things feel a little better. You're less afraid that Ardyn might sneak up on you and catch you unawares.   
  
With dinner taken care of and out of the way at the diner, you spend the evening pulling extra blankets out of the cabinet you found the heater in and constructing a nest of sorts on the caravan’s skinny excuse of a couch. Sufficiently warm and absolutely determined to take your mind off your surroundings, you burrow in and tap open the King's Knight app on your phone.   
  
KK is way easier when you get to team up with Ignis and Gladio, but single player can be rewarding enough. It sucks that the next boss rips you to shreds when you attempt to fight it as just one person, but you guess it's a sign that you should take the opportunity to grind up EXP and GP while away from everyone else.   
  
Things are fine. Really. You feel fine. The game is bright and colorful, and the music that pours from your phone's speakers is cheerful and triumphant with every level you gain.  
  
You're fine.  
  
And then you start to yawn.  
  
Checking the time on your phone, you find it's 12:37 a.m. As per the caravan regulations, check out is at 9:00 a.m., so you've still got time to get a decent night's sleep.   
  
You keep playing, until 1:37, when you have to untangle from your blanket nest to plug your phone in and charge it, and further still to 2:37, when you actually can't keep your eyes open anymore.   
  
You look up bleary eyed from the game, and your eyes latch onto the bedroom.   
  
You breathe shakily.   
  
If you fell asleep now, you would get around five or six hours of sleep. That's not awful, right? You've survived on less in the past.   
  
All told, you should at least try.   
  
You save your game and put your phone into sleep mode, setting it beside you on the floor. Standing, you reach over and turn off the space heater. Considering it's not your own, it's probably not a good idea to keep it on all night.  
  
While up, you eye the tiny patch of space between the kitchenette and the couch.

You _could_ try sleeping there, sure, but you'd be left sore and hurting in the morning. That's not such a good idea for the daemons you'll be fighting through to get home tomorrow.   
  
Scooping your blanket nest off the couch, you consider it, too; but the thing was only big enough to hold you, curled into a ball with your phone. You couldn't sleep on it.  
  
That only leaves the bedroom.   
  
You whine quietly.   
  
The door still stands open, as if proving to you that the room is as empty as the rest of the caravan. Peering into it, you can almost hear Ignis's voice in your mind.   
  
_Breathe. Use your counting technique. You can beat this. You can beat this.  
_  
The last line bleeds into your own voice.   
  
_I can beat this.  
_  
You inhale, and step into the bedroom.   
  
It's a bit colder than the rest of the caravan, due to the way it's awkwardly tucked into the back and out of the heater's direct path. Luckily, you've still got the remnants of your blanket nest in addition to the bedding already on the bed. You throw them down, making the thing as comfortable as you possibly can.   
  
Eventually, the perfect sleeping setup turns into yet another excuse not to actually lay down and go to sleep.  
  
You walk back out to the main area and check the time on your phone: 3:05 a.m.   
  
Fuck. You've really got to sleep.   
  
You take a deep breath. _I can beat this.  
_  
Walking back through to the bedroom you flick out all the lights, leaving the place in darkness. Your heart lurches in your chest as you turn out the final one, but you push past it and through to the bed anyway.  
  
Before hesitation can rear up, you plant yourself firmly on the mattress.  
  
You pull your legs up onto the bed.   
  
You recline.   
  
You arrange the blankets all around you.   
  
And you breathe.   
  
There's a window, to your right. It's long and skinny. Through it, you see the bright lights of the Crow's Nest diner, and the faint outlines of the Arches over you.  
  
You breathe, and allow your heavy eyelids to close.  
  
_In for five.  
  
Hold for five.   
_  
A hand brushes up your side and you yelp, falling out of the bed in an effort to get away from the touch. Your Lion Heart appears in less than a second, and you point its sights towards where you were lying.  
  
No one's there.

You struggle to catch your breath.

Just for safety's sake, you keep the gun with you as you climb back under the covers. You close your eyes again, and turn onto your right side.  
  
An arm comes around your waist, and you swear to the Six above that you can feel yourself pulled into being the little spoon.  
  
In your fear, you kick and buck and swat away the man behind you. You turn again to meet him, and still, there's no one there.   
  
Whimpering, you bury yourself in blankets.   
  
A hand strokes down your side, before coming to rest on your ass. You curl yet tighter.  
  
_It's not real, it's not real, it's not real.  
_  
He's not here.   
  
You _should_ be safe.  
  
The hand wanders. It trails up your back again briefly, then around, settling flat where your stomach meets your crotch.  
  
Stray, flyaway hair tickles your neck. There's hot breath on the side of your face.   
  
_"Mine,"_ he whispers, _"all mine."  
_  
"Stop," you counter, and you can hear your voice breaking. "Stop it."  
  
He hums, settling in closer, wrapping his arms tight around your middle.   
  
_"My dearest."  
_  
For lack of a better idea, you flip back over to the right, and summon your camera. In your anxiety, waiting for the device to boot up feels like an eternity. Once on, you navigate into the photo gallery, past years old pictures of Noctis, past landscapes and ill-conceived battle selfies, to the photos you took today.  
  
There they are: the Duscaen Arches.   
  
They...actually didn't come out too bad.  
  
You settle in and flick through the different angles you approached each shot from, deleting the ones that didn't work as well.   
  
"You're not real," you whisper while working. "You're not here. I took these pictures. I'm out of Niflheim. I'm not your property anymore."  
  
The camera keeps the phantom hands at bay, but then you're back to the problem of needing sleep.  
  
Your phone is still in the other room charging, but you're certain if you looked at it the time would be close to 4:00 a.m. by now.  
  
Ugh.  
  
You let the camera dissolve into the Armiger, feeling back at square one.   
  
You sigh.  
  
"I am not your property," you say into the darkness.  
  
No one responds.   
  
"I don't know why you're still here. I don't understand why you got to have free reign of my body back then, and now you’ve got my brain. Talk about a shitty trade off."  
  
You force the heels of your palms into your eyes.  
  
"I'm safe. I'm safe. Okay? I'm...at an outpost. Even if this actually was you," you gulp down the sudden nausea that flares up, "even if it was you, I can scream. I can make a big deal. I have a gun, y'know. Granted, you're immortal, but I could at least...slow you down?"  
  
You pause, running through your breathing mnemonic.   
  
"I'm safe," you say, closing your eyes against the hand that trails down your arm. "I'm safe, I'm safe, and I’m far away from you..."  
  
The hand settles in your own, warm and solid. Strangely, that's enough to give you an idea.  
  
You flip onto your back, and when the hands descend again, you don't fight their presence.  
  
Instead, you close your eyes, breathe deep, and pretend Noctis is the one lying beside you. His hands don't wander, and he doesn't try to swallow you up with his body. Only one of his hands rests gently in your own, squeezing slightly whenever your deep breathing is interrupted by flashes of bad memories.   
  
The other hands relent, eventually; one by one by one, the further you fall beneath the hazy line of dreaming and waking.  
  
In your delirious, sleep deprived state, it's almost like Noctis is real beside you, instead of a figment of your imagination.   
  
You roll over. Distantly, he untangles your hands and instead brings his arm up by the pillows. Shifting into the warmth left behind, you find his chest and bury your face in it.  
  
"Noct..."

He shushes you.  
  
"Just get some rest," you think you hear him say.   
  
You can't argue with that, falling into a dreamless and Ardyn-free sleep.


	8. Years 8 and 9

You spend less and less time at Hammerhead.   
  
Whether it's due to the now commonplace emergency supplies runs for the outpost, or going daemon hunting with Gladio and Ignis, your bed becomes a something you’re not as acquainted with. Havens are utilized more. There, you usually have to share a tent with other people, and even when it’s with your most trusted friends, it isn’t easy on you.

On the bad nights, you remember to breathe. You’ll exit the tent, escape from physical contact, and do whatever it is you need to keep surviving.

At other times, scrap yards are raided, long forgotten outposts and towns double and triple combed through for anything to strengthen the perimeter lights back home. Anything to hold back the rising tide of the darkness and the Scourge.  
  
Sometimes, when you lay wide awake at night, your thoughts drift to Cindy.   
  
You wonder if she's got her hands full.  
  
You wonder if Aranea's helping her, when she can.  
  
Or, you think of Talcott. The kid delivers supplies from one point to another, between what towns and outposts have survived nearly a decade of black. Even in his sputtering little truck, he's a vital part of this world nowadays. When you can, you send out prayers to the Six for his safety.  
  
But mostly, you think about Noctis.  
  
All this time, you've held on to hope. You’ve looked for your true King in everything around you. Every day, you wait and wait and wait.

It's soon that he’s coming back, and you can feel it. You _know_ it to be true, and you hold onto that through every sleepless night, every firefight you find yourself in, every challenge you overcome, mental or physical.

He’s going to come back, and he's going to be proud. You're going to be proud.

It's going to turn out right.


	9. Year 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yesterday was the 1st anniversary of my embarking on this writing journey (starting with Put The Pieces Back Right). As an unexpected, celebratory treat, here's a second update for y'all!
> 
> Thanks so much for keeping on this journey with me, and for all your kudos, and comments, and support. It really helps to keep me going. <3 It's true we're nearing the end of this multi-chapter entry, but remember; there's still post-Dawn to cover...

The first time you saw these doors, the only feeling in your head was intimidation. Behind them stood an enemy leader, one you were always told to be ruthless and illogical, never listening to the sanity of the Empire. You remember wondering if the Chancellor was feeling the same thing, seeking an audience with someone who undoubtedly wouldn't end up listening to him.  
  
Paltry _intimidation_ is probably the last thing you feel when you look up at the Throne Room doors right now. This time you know the truth behind who lurks inside.  
  
Your breaths get shallow.  
  
Outside on the steps of the Citadel, you hadn't actually expected to see Ardyn in the flesh. Now, it's a choice. You are being presented with a situation in which your worst nightmare waits for you on the other side of these double doors, and if you open them you _will_ be back in his grasp, if only for a moment.  
  
Not in your head.  
  
Not in a memory.  
  
Ardyn Izunia will stand before you, real as the ground you stand on, or the Kingsglaive uniform you wear.  
  
Real as Noctis, who brushes beside you and makes you jump.  
  
"Are you okay?" he whispers to you, eyes firmly planted on the Throne Room doors.  
  
"No.” You stare at them with him. “I'm scared."  
  
He exhales. "So am I."  
  
He stands so close the knuckles of your hands brush together. You let it happen.  
  
"I can't complain," you continue. "He's gonna be dead soon, right? I'll...be okay."  
  
Unless something goes wrong, and Noctis can't fulfill his destiny. Unless he’s too strong for even the four of you combined. Unless there isn’t a way around his immortality. Unless he slaughters your friends in front of you, sparing only yourself for his own sick pleasure—  
  
"If he touches you, I'll protect you,” Noctis asserts.  
  
"I can protect myself.”  
  
"I know." Noctis turns now and you do too, so you face each other. "It's like what you said back in the Keep, though. ‘Ever at your side.’ 'Course you can protect yourself, but I'll be right there beside you. I promise.”  
  
You don't want to close your eyes, but you have to in order to keep your tears at bay.  
  
"Right," you exhale, "right. And I'm at your side, too. I'll do whatever I can to help you take this bastard down."  
  
Noctis's smile turns sad. He briefly pulls the picture he took from you out of his breast pocket.  
  
"You've done more than enough already."  
  
Noctis bows his head, and turns back to the doors. He lays a hand on it, just like he did the handle of Talcott’s car door. You suddenly want nothing more than to be back at Hammerhead, _safe_ and _with him_ , before all this muck about his sacrifice came into the picture.

"Showtime," he says, loud enough for all four of you to hear, and pushes them wide open.  
  
Sure enough, Ardyn is inside, lazing about on the throne, treating it as if it's the chaise lounge from his old penthouse apartment and not something he destroyed nations over.

You don’t even hear the words coming out of Noctis’s mouth as the two of them banter, instead hyper-focused on the room, the circumstances, the position of your old abuser, high above you. Ardyn’s eyes comb through each of your companions, starting with Noctis, slinking appreciatively past Ignis and Gladio, before settling on you. His lips curl upwards.

A small but deafeningly loud part of you screams: _run_. Run from him, run out of the Citadel, run to safety. _Nothing can be worth risking your autonomy._

You don't.

Being this close to him, after so many years of freedom, is truly terrifying. It takes everything in you to continue walking tall, keep looking up at him, but you do it.  
  
You won't back down. You won't let your terror or your trepidation undo you. You refuse to let him turn you back into the scared, confused MT that he did anything he wanted to, that he said was worthless.  
  
Your name is Prompto, and you will fight back, and you will stand by your King until the day you die.  
  
You look to Ignis and Gladio, on your left, and trade a glance with Noctis, on your right.  
  
Ardyn draws himself off of the throne, showing off his full, impressive stature, and the showdown begins.  


 

******

 

 

  
Dawn rings out with a noise like a whip crack.  
  
You lie on the cracked steps of the Citadel, catching your breath after the Yojimbo that pinned you down dissipates. You bring your wrist up to wipe at your brow, then at your eyes as the sun's beams pierce your retinas.  
  
Gladio can't seem to lift his sword anymore. He rests the end on the stone beneath him and sinks to his knees with it, staring out at the horizon. Even Ignis turns his head towards the myriad colors breaking through the dark sky, choking up when he whispers, "He did it."  
  
You place an elbow behind you, sitting up. Sweat and blood trickles from a cut on your forehead, but you just swipe it aside.  
  
"Yeah. He did." Your words sound hollow, even to your own ears.  
  
The sight defies description. You're sure that in the future, someone far more poetic than yourself will recount this moment in the flowery language it deserves, and you'll be glad they did. For now you lay bruised and half-dead, gaping at the ridiculous beauty that paints the sky after a decade of nothing.  
  
The only thing that ruins the moment is when you remember its price. Surprisingly, though, you're not the first to cry.  
  
Gladio is.  
  
His greatsword clangs against the landing when he lets it go, but even the sound of that isn't enough to drown out his raucous sobs. He buries his face in his hands, losing himself in his grief.  
  
He acts like he's lost family. In a way, he has.

All three of you have.  
  
Ignis is the first to reach him, placing a hand between his shoulder blades. A moment later he kneels beside him, and pries a hand from Gladio’s tear-streaked face to hold in both of his own.  
  
You don't know if you have the energy to stand right now, but after a few minutes you manage to crawl over to where the other two men are huddled together. Gladio sees you approach, barely holding yourself together physically and emotionally.  
  
"Blondie's injured," he tells Ignis, voice crackly.  
  
"I wouldn't know what we could do," Ignis replies, "with...what happened, our curative supply is likely cut off."  
  
You get closer, kneeling in front of the both of them.  
  
"I'm gonna be okay, until we get back. Just need something to stem the blood."  
  
Gladio shakes off Ignis so he can reach behind himself, and untie his hair.  
  
"Use this," he says, holding out the thin strip of cloth that held his ponytail up. He’s able to keep his voice mostly together this time.  
  
You use the skinny fabric to wipe around the cut, then tie a clean stretch around your head as a makeshift bandage. You feel better, getting that out of the way.  
  
Gladio's sobs have since subsided, leaving you as the next one to be attacked by the full realization of your loss.  
  
Noctis is gone.  
  
Noctis, who helped to save you, who changed your life, who you felt one hundred percent safe around. He's gone, with the rising sun.  
  
You can't just sit here.  
  
"I'm...gonna go see him," you say before you really know what you're doing, and find it within you to pull yourself to your feet.  
  
"If you're going to go, would you like me to come with?" Ignis asks. "I can...provide moral support. I won't be able to see him there, after all."  
  
"Sure."

With a bit of courage, you reach out a hand and help him up.  
  
"I'm not goin'," Gladio asserts. He pulls his discarded greatsword into his lap, hanging onto the handle as if it's a lifeline. "I'll see him later."  
  
The unspoken _"I can't right now,"_ hangs between the three of you. You nod, and walk with Ignis inside the Citadel.  
  
Somehow, in the light, the place is even more of a mess. The thought suddenly occurs to you that this will all have to be rebuilt at some point, and the land and city around it healed and repaired.  
  
In the future will people even remember what happened, other than in textbooks? Will the past ten years of struggle, will this loss, even _mean_ anything?  
  
For some reason, it's this thought that makes you cry for real. You give a shaky, broken exhale, and Ignis tilts his head towards you.  
  
"Has it occurred to you as well?"  
  
You place a hand to your mouth.  
  
"It's complicated..."  
  
"I understand."  
  
You enter the elevator, and select the floor for the Throne Room. In the few seconds it takes you to rise up, you've completely lost it, sobbing into your hand. Ignis hovers close, but doesn’t touch—you appreciate that, deeply. He whispers soft nothings; comforts like “it’s alright,” and “the dawn is back,” and “we can rebuild.” Always the caretaker. You shudder to think what it'll look like when all of this hits him, too. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re kind of surprised it’s taking this long.  
  
You don't force yourself to stop crying, but when you lay a hand to the doors of the Throne Room, you do try to quiet yourself a little. Noctis deserves that, at least.  
  
You push open the doors, and the body draws your eyes like a magnet. You stop dead in your tracks, staring. Ignis does this as well; maybe it’s the feeling in the air, somber and unearthly still.  
  
The sight of anyone sitting in that throne sends chills up your spine, with the memory of seeing Ardyn again after ten years playing again in your mind. Then reality bleeds in; the sun shining through the gaping hole in the left wall, dust motes dancing in its beams. Noctis, your best friend, sitting perfectly upright, perfectly still.  
  
As you bring yourself closer, you see what it is holding him up so straight—the Sword Of The Father, pinned right through the center of his chest.  
  
You dart from Ignis’s side, running up to assess the damage.  
  
"Prompto," he calls after you; but it’s half-hearted, and you ignore it.  
  
When you get close enough to see Noctis’s face, it's paler than paper. His mouth hangs slightly open, as if he’s uttering a prayer. His head slumps towards his right shoulder, hair falling in his face. Brushing some out of the way, you feel just how icy his skin is.  
  
You recoil. You haven't felt skin that cold in a _long_ time, and you'd rather avoid it again, if at all possible.  
  
The tears continue to fall as you see him here, your salvation and despair all at once.  
  
You rest a hand on the arm of the throne, and let yourself have a moment to cry.  
  
He's gone. He's _gone_ , and you never even worked up the nerve to _confess_ , or to even _suggest_ the possibility of a happy ending for him—

The distinct sound of boots stomping through the hall outside echo into the Throne Room. You look back towards the doors, finding Ignis doing similar. Not a minute later, Gladio slams through and into the room, eyes wide and hair everywhere.  
  
"My sword," he pants, "it's gone."  
  
"What?" Ignis sounds more angry than shocked or relieved. "Come to yourself, Gladio,” he snaps, “that's impossible."  
  
Gladio shakes his head, swallowing thickly. "I'm not lying."  
  
Right by your ear comes a familiar noise, a cross between a fizzle and the sound of metal sliding across rock.  
  
You whip your head around.  
  
All that remains of the Sword Of The Father is a few blue twinkles, and the red hole in Noctis's chest.  
  
"See," Gladio points up towards you, "there it is again!"  
  
Ignis begins his trek up the stairs, climbing them as fast as he can manage.  
  
"What the—"  
  
He doesn't get to finish the thought before you yelp in surprise.  
  
Noctis falls forward, with the sword no longer holding him upright. He slumps off the Throne, and it takes everything in your power not to slide backwards down the stairs with the force of his landing on you. His chest presses rigidly against yours, his face hanging just over your shoulder. The blood from his wound is warm, and his chest starts to move as suddenly as the sword disappeared into the Armiger.  
  
He gasps, the loud noise bleeding into a cry of pain.  
  
Then, mumbled right afterwards: "Luna, _wait_."  
  
"Oh my gods," you babble, "Gods, gods, gods, gods..."  
  
" _Noct!_ " Ignis cries, and reaches you and the body seconds later. He finds Noctis's forehead, sweeping his black bangs out of the way to gain access to the skin underneath.  
  
"He's warming up," Ignis shouts across the room to Gladio, then says to you, "Elixir, _now_."  
  
You free a hand from underneath Noctis's crushing body weight, and summon one of the green bottles like it wasn't an impossible task just a few minutes ago.  
  
He uncaps it and pours the drink down Noctis's back, at the exit wound.  
  
Noctis groans, and you make a sound halfway between a scream and a giggle. You weren't even aware a human being could _make_ a noise like that.  
  
Gladio comes up to the side opposite where Ignis is.  
  
"You're alive," he says, placing a hand on Noctis's back. “You sonuva bitch.”  
  
"The wound is severe. He really should be dead. I'm afraid our curatives aren't going to cut it; Noct needs medical attention. Gladio, Prompto, I’m afraid you must carry Noct through Insomnia. With no daemons about, I'll secure us a way back through the rubble."

There goes Ignis doing what he does best in a crisis: setting a goal, outlining a plan, delegating jobs.  
  
"Is he going to be okay for that long?" you ask.  
  
Ignis shakes his head. "With the Elixir, he should be, but we should still make haste."  
  
Gods. _Gods._  
  
You find yourself crying again as you help hoist Noctis's body up from the marble floor. This time the tears fall due to disbelief, relief, shock, the light of the sun streaming in and blinding you as you rise with Gladio and the body of your half-conscious King.


	10. Aftermath

It takes an inordinate amount of time to find aid for Noctis.

In the wake of Dawn, people have taken to the streets in every outpost you’ve managed to visit, celebrating and partying, resulting in most everyone being preoccupied. Eventually you manage to find a doctor in Duscae who’s not totally plastered, and who takes the Dawn King in with attentive and reverent care.

It takes a couple of days, but when Noctis stirs in the sheets of his hospital bed, it's a bit like the sun coming up all over again.  
  
You look up from your phone, putting it and your game of King's Knight into sleep mode as you inch your chair closer to his bedside.  
  
He squirms and flinches, face squishing up.  
  
"Gods. Fuck, it's bright," is the first thing he says, low and gravelly in his disused voice.  
  
"Oh! I'll get that."   
  
You say it maybe a little too loud, bolting up from your chair and adjusting the light switch at the end of the room to a dimmer setting. When you turn back, Noctis can open his eyes fully now, no longer afraid of the piercing light.  
  
"Prompto?" he asks, a little in awe, but mostly disoriented.  
  
"Hah," you laugh, "I know." You pick at the edges of your Kingsglaive tank. "Probably not who you were expecting to see.”  
  
"No," he rasps, "no. Prom, you're perfect. Six." He runs his fingers through his hair, wincing at how the movement pulls at the wrappings around his chest.  
  
You sit back down in your chair, smiling like a dope because of the comment. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Fuck, like I've been run through with a hundred swords."  
  
"Yup, that sounds about right," you laugh. Sheer relief colors the sound, and you're not sure if you should bother fighting the tears that gather in the corner of your eyes.  
  
"Oh, jeez." He leans back into his pillows, blinking rapidly. "Everyone else is okay, right? Please, _please_ tell me they're safe—"  
  
"Ignis and Gladio are fine. We've been taking shifts, watching you. Other people, Cindy, Cor, Talcott, Aranea...they're fine too. Everyone is totally okay, Noct."  
  
For the first time since waking, Noctis takes a full breath.  
  
"Okay. Thanks."  
  
"No problem, buddy."  
  
You unlock your phone while Noctis adjusts to his surroundings, and save your game before returning your full attention to the King in front of you. You help him sit up a bit more, and pull a water bottle out of the Armiger so he can get a drink.  
  
When all is said and done, the both of you readjusted and settled in your respective places, Noctis talks again.  
  
"How long has it been since the Dawn?"  
  
You shrug. "Couple of days. Everyone’s pretty happy about what you did. They’re out there having a great time with no daemons to ruin everything.”  
  
Noctis smiles at that, and it's one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen in your life. He didn't smile much, back in his twenties, much less on the nightmarish train ride that started this whole mess in the first place. You hope that in whatever this new world brings, you'll be able to see it more and more.  
  
"I have a question," you say, feeling terrible you have to sour the mood.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"When you...when you came back to life, on the throne. Um. How did you do that? Didn't you say you needed to die?"  
  
"I did die."  
  
"Yeah, but not permanently. I thought that was the thing. What happened?"  
  
Noctis fixes his gaze on the wall ahead of him.  
  
"After...I died...I Ascended to the Astral Plane. Ardyn was there, and I used what power I had left to fight him. Luna was with me. We took him down together—he’s gone forever, now. I promise."  
  
Your eyes crowd with tears again. "Yeah," you try your hardest not to sound choked up. "I know. Thanks."  
  
"So...he disappeared. All of the Arms flew out of me, and the Ring slipped off my finger. I thought that was just...gonna be it. But when I opened my eyes, Luna was still there."  
  
Noctis casts a sidelong glance at you, fiddling with his hands. "I...can I...hold..."  
  
You answer by grasping his left hand, squeezing tightly. He continues, shoulders relaxing.  
  
"I asked her what was going on, and she gave me this look, like she was...angry. She said that I had places to be, people to protect. I tried to say something. Bahamut's words were fishy, but I was way too afraid to fight against them. She, though. I think she has more balls than I ever will."  
  
He offers a self-deprecating laugh, and you give his hand another encouraging squeeze.  
  
"She said she was going to confront the Gods herself, with Shiva and Ifrit already on her side. Then she healed me, and I woke up."  
  
"Wow." You swipe a thumb over his knuckles. "That's...wow." You can't summon much more.  
  
"Yeah," he settles further down into his pillows, "it really is."  
  
You and Noctis sit with each other’s' hands. Sunlight peeks in through the curtains of a nearby window, and the sheer grief you felt during your last conversation with him trickles away, fading like the night did.   
  
You allow yourself to close your eyes and smile, basking in the moment.  
  
"Hey. What's that look about?" Noctis teases.  
  
"Just..." you start, but honestly you don't think you could put it into words if you tried. ”I dunno. For the first time in a long, _long_ fucking time, things just feel...good. Sun's up. Ardyn's dead. You're back."  
  
Noctis smiles again, but it's not the moonlight glow of earlier. It's something small, even bashful.  
  
"Hey, yeah," he says, "you never did fill me in on the adventures of Kingsglaive Prompto, out in the wild. Any highlights of the past ten years I should know about?"  
  
Your own dorky smile turns wry, teasing.   
  
"Actually, your Majesty, now that you mention it, I might have a little number prepared."  
  
You pull out of Noctis's grip. With just a thought, your camera appears in your hands.   
  
"Woah," he goes wide-eyed. "You kept that?"  
  
You scoff. "Of course I did." You press down on the power button, and wait for the old thing to boot up. "Dude, this thing means so much to me."  
  
When it's all warmed up and you've navigated to the photo selection, you move your chair so you and Noctis can both see the cracked screen.   
  
"Ready?" you ask.  
  
Noctis gives you another softly glowing smile, and you can't help but think _gods, I’m so glad you’re back._

"Awesome," you say, and open the photo gallery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the conclusion of our special multi-part Birdcage entry, but don't touch that dial! We'll be back with more trauma recovery, promptisy goodness (with a big ol dollop of fluff next time) in just a couple of weeks. 
> 
> In the meantime, thank you for reading!!!! And for sticking around this long. <3 Your comments and kudos never go unappreciated.
> 
> Oh, and- Happy Pride Month. :D


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